The Florida Agenda - Glossary

Accountability - The concept of holding appropriate parties responsible for their actions or performance.

Approaches toward Learning - Children's learning styles, motivations, task attentiveness, curiosity and creativity.

Assessment - The process of collecting data to measure the performance or capabilities of a person, group or system.

Asset and Strength - A community's assets are its tangible and intangible strengths and capabilities. Tangible assets include buildings, services and people. Intangible assets include skills, knowledge, contacts and individual capacities. Internal assets are within the control of the community such as cultural organizations, personal income, businesses, business associations, individual capacities, religious organizations, advocacy groups, citizen associations, home-based enterprises, etc. External assets may be located within a community, but are largely controlled externally for the community. These include law enforcement, parks, fire departments, libraries, public schools, hospitals, higher education institutions, energy/waste resources, social service agencies, and vacant buildings, land, etc. Additionally, there may be external assets and resources available to a community that originate outside of the community and are controlled by outsiders, such as public information, welfare expenditures, capital improvement expenditures, philanthropic organizations, etc.

CDA (Child Development Associate) Credential - The CDA is designed for employees in the field of early childhood education and certifies success completion of courses in teaching methods in nursery schools and daycare centers. CDA credits may be applied to an associate degree program in Early Childhood Education.

Child Development - Growth or maturation that occurs primarily because of the emergence of underlying biological patterns, preconditions and environmental conditions.

Cognitive Development and General Knowledge - Basic knowledge about the self (e.g., name and address), the environment (e.g., basic science and community concepts), cognitive competencies (e.g., basic mathematical constructs of shape, size and sequencing) and basic problem solving skills (e.g., similarities and differences).

Communication/Language Development - The verbal and non-verbal skills necessary to convey and understand meaning via early literacy, speaking and print awareness.

Community - A community is any group of people brought together for a common purpose or compelling reason. This establishes its borders or parameters. It may be small, medium or large; a service area; a geographic area; a political division; an economic region; a combination of individuals, organizations, associations and institutions; a group of people with common characteristics or goals; etc. Sometimes, community membership is voluntary (e.g., neighborhood, club, advocacy group, church, Internet Listserv, etc.) and sometimes it is not (e.g., zip code, ethnicity, school district, etc.). The nature and composition of a community change shape and membership. A community could be established based on an ideology or on interests. Therefore, an important step in any community work is identifying the borders (for example, immediate section or sub-section, bureau, department, street, block of homes; number of church families; etc.) of the community. Whatever its description, people within a community are bonded together around a common parameter or issue.

Connections - Community building is at first accomplished one-on-one and these relationships are then connected. Connection is the process by which local strengths are not only identified but also mobilized to meet the goals desired by the community. It is central to community facilitation and capacity development. This process of identification and mobilization means:

• discovering those people in the community who are actively doing things behind the scenes and offer them support
• involvement of community residents and members
• communication among individuals and groups
• recognition, acceptance and use of human and resource potential within the community
• a focus on talents, skills, capabilities, desires and vision of all members
• working one-to-one with community people and linking individuals to each other so that small groups form to achieve manageable projects
• sharing information about local strengths
• linking people and groups with other people, local associations, local businesses, local institutions, capital and credit.

Continuity of Care - Continuity of care and consistency help the infant and toddler extract internal models of care and -- if the care is sensitive and responsive -- build multiple secure attachment relationships. It is provided by a community of stable, emotionally invested caregivers, all of whom a child can trust, where child-caregiver relationships are able to build without disruption, until multiple attachment relationships are secure.

Developmental Assessment - Measurement of a child's cognitive, language, gross and fine motor, and social-emotional skills in order to evaluate development in comparison to children of the same chronological age

Developmentally Appropriate - Teaching based on a knowledge of how children learn, specifically through opportunities for direct experience, and of synthesizing this experience through activities.

Early Care and Education (AKA Quality Child Care) - A program that makes the healthy development and education of young children its first objective and accomplishes this objective.

Early Childhood - The stage of life from birth through age five.

Family Friendly - An employer that acknowledges that its employees are human beings with important personal responsibilities, and supports them in their efforts to handle those responsibilities.

Home Visiting Program - A professional or para-professional visits families in the home to accomplish a variety of goals such as: promotion of good parenting skills, prevention of child abuse and neglect, promotion of healthy child development and school readiness, linkages to other needed family supports and resources and sometimes the improvement of mothers' lives (e.g., deferral of subsequent pregnancies and promotion of maternal education and employment). The overarching belief is that parents play a pivotal role in shaping children's lives and one of the best ways to reach families with young children is to take the services to them rather than expecting those families to seek assistance in the community.

Indicators - Quantitative or numerical measures that show whether outcomes are improving, holding steady or worsening. A social indicator is a statistic used to report on a societal condition, such as the rate of infant mortality.

Learning - Acquisition of knowledge, skills, ways of thinking, attitudes and values as a result of experience.

Motor Development - Children's abilities to engage in gross motor (e.g., catching a ball, walking a balance beam) and fine motor (e.g., cutting with scissors) activities.

Natural Supports - Familiar people and resources that individuals would naturally approach when seeking help; self, family, friends, neighbors, etc.

Neighborhood - Geographically bounded territory within which people live, a locality recognized by local government and distinguishable on plat maps that can provide a shared frame of reference growing from a dynamic patter of interactions, a shared history and common interests.

Outcomes - Statements that communicate desired conditions of well-being for children, adults, families or communities

Physical Health - Children's physical development (e.g., growth rates), health status (e.g., immunizations, dental, vision and hearing) and physical abilities.

Primary Supports and Services - Voluntary activities, facilities and events provided by organizations and groups that are part of families' familiar social world. They offer opportunities for participation, avenues for contributing to the well being of others and sources of personal support.

Quality Child Care (AKA Early Care and Education) - A program that makes the healthy development and education of children its first objective and accomplishes this objective.

School Readiness - The match between the range of developmental accomplishments (e.g., emerging literacy and numeracy skills, such as pretending to read stories or counting to 20, and small-motor skills, such as buttoning clothes and holding a pencil properly) and difficulties (e.g., such as restlessness and inattention, speech difficulties, and less than optimal health) that children bring with them when they arrive at kindergarten and the capacity of schools to educate all children regardless of the abilities, interests and talents they bring to school.

Specialized Supports and Services - Interventions aimed at reducing or resolving the difficulties that children or parents may have in physical, cognitive, emotional or behavioral arenas. These supports and services are usually provided by individuals whose disciplinary perspectives, training and skills are geared to understanding and developing remedies for particular child or parent difficulties.

Social/Emotional Development - Children's feelings about themselves and others and the ways in which they form and maintain positive relationships and get along in group settings.

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