Week 15 · Readings & resources

Week 15 — Readings & Resources

Child Development Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 15 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 11 items (5 readings and 6 videos). Allow 50–62 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (18–20 min total)

① Families and poverty, described fairly

Chapter 15, Section “Describe families in many forms” · Session 1, Segment 1, “Family forms, culture, and poverty” · Remember: children develop well in many family forms, and a poverty figure describes many children, never one child.

Stages of Family Life: Crash Course Sociology #38 — CrashCourse — a fast sociology explainer that walks one common path through family life, from dating and marriage to raising children and caring for aging parents, then spends its last two minutes on the many other forms families take: same-sex married couples, couples without children, single-parent families, cohabiting parents, and blended families. Its percentages, including its comparisons of family structure across groups, are the video's own and not numbers this course keys; describe each form without ranking it. This builds on Week 1's ecological systems, where the family is a microsystem. (video, 11 min) (captions: creator)
Poverty in the United States: 2023 — U.S. Census Bureau — the Census Bureau's report page for 2023, whose highlights give both the official poverty measure and the Supplemental Poverty Measure, including the child rate of 13.7 percent, up 1.3 percentage points. Read the highlights only; later reports carry newer years, and this course uses the 2023 figure with its year and in words. (reading, 4–6 min)

② What quality care looks like

Chapter 15, Section “Judge childcare quality by what caregivers do” · Session 1, Segment 3, “Childcare quality and Head Start” · Remember: quality shows in what caregivers do, such as warm, responsive care, small groups, and safe settings, not in what a program costs.

How to find high-quality child care — Le Bonheur Children's Hospital — a child care specialist walks families through visiting a few centers, checking that the room is clean and safe and the program is licensed, asking who will care for the child and what training the staff have, including CPR and first aid, and staying involved after enrolling. Compare her list with the chapter's four features of quality. (video, 2 min) (captions: automatic)
Defining Quality Child Care — California Department of Education — a state education department's short guide for families: safe settings, small groups and adult-to-child ratios that support development, trained and experienced caregivers, real chances for parents to take part, and materials that respect a child's cultural background. Its advice on when to start a search is the page's own; read it for the markers of quality. Use it while completing the Week-15 module overview. (reading, 5–7 min)
What is Head Start? — EO — a short overview from a local Head Start provider: Head Start serves children about 3 to 5, Early Head Start serves infants, toddlers, and pregnant women, and both look after education, health, and family well-being at no cost to eligible families. Its eligibility details are the program's own; the course pins only that Head Start began in 1965. (video, 2 min) (captions: automatic)

③ ACEs: links, not destinies

Chapter 15, Section “Understand adverse childhood experiences: links, not destinies” · Session 2, Segment 4, “Adverse childhood experiences” · Remember: ACE research found links across many adults, so an ACE count is neither a diagnosis nor a destiny.

Adverse Childhood Experiences - NHS Health Scotland — Public Health Scotland — an animated short narrated by a child character that names the kinds of ACEs, from abuse and neglect to a parent with a mental illness, says the risk of later health problems rises as ACEs add up, and closes on how a trusted adult can help. Its figures about Scotland and England are the video's own. It asks workers to think about whether a child is experiencing an ACE; in this course, observers never count or assess a real child's ACEs. (video, 4 min) (captions: creator)
Adverse Childhood Experiences: Risk Factors for Substance Abuse and Mental Health — SAMHSA — one of the original ACE Study's lead researchers explains its ten categories of abuse, neglect, and household challenges and its three findings: ACEs are common, they tend to occur together, and their count adds up to higher risk. Listen for where he uses the word cause; the study's design shows links, and the course reads its findings as associations. (video, 3 min) (captions: creator)
About Adverse Childhood Experiences — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the CDC's plain-language page on what ACEs are, with examples, how they are linked with health into adulthood, and its message that safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments help prevent them. Its survey figures for high school students and its cost estimate are the page's own; the course says only the 2011–2020 adult figures in words. (reading, 5–8 min)

④ Resilience grows from supports

Chapter 15, Section “Build resilience from protective factors” · Session 2, Segment 5, “Resilience and protective factors” · Remember: resilience grows from a caring adult, problem-solving skills, and community supports, not from a trait some children lack.

We Can Prevent ACEs — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — an animated story in which a young adult walks through the neighborhood where they grew up and points out the people who helped: a mentor who checks homework, a store owner who gave kids a place after school, coaches, and job workshops that eased a parent's stress. It closes on five CDC prevention strategies, which are that body's position. Name each protective factor as it appears. (video, 5 min) (captions: creator)
A Guide to Resilience — Center on the Developing Child — a child-development research center's guide that describes resilience as overcoming serious hardship, ties it to protective factors in a child's surroundings, and says the skills underneath it can be strengthened at any age. Read the opening explainer and skip the long list of linked resources. (reading, 4–6 min)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Ecological systems theory, The five systems — Wikipedia — the free encyclopedia's section on the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem, the lens this week uses to place every record of the running case; read the five definitions and treat its examples about divorce as the page's own, not findings this course keys. (reading, 5–8 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

Provenance: Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com