PARTICIPANTS at a global conference on early childhood education now being held in Kingston, are trying to develop a manual for an integrated approach to all the issues related to early childhood development.

“We recognise that we won’t get rid of the different sectors — like health, education and so on; but based on research, we have found that for many families there is a need for integrated services to be brought to them,” said Dr Kerida McDonald, specialist on early childhood development with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Jamaica.

She was explaining the need for the manual to be finalised so that it can be used to train both UNICEF staff and members of different governmental bodies across the world.

“This is the third one-week session that we have held across the world, pulling together regional advisors. So after this, hopefully, a consultant can just wrap it up,” Dr McDonald said.

About 23 early childhood experts from UNICEF headquarters, New York, Canada, Switzerland, Panama, Nicaragua, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Tanzania are attending the conference, which is being held at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel. The workshop, which is being hosted by the UNICEF Jamaica office, ends tomorrow. It began on Monday.

According to Dr McDonald, Jamaica was chosen as the conference venue because of the international recognition that it had received for its integrated national policy development, inter-sectoral institutional structures and programmes, parenting support and community involvement.

“We have moved from just a policy on how to run a basic school to developing common standards for day care centres and pre-schools,” she said. “We are broadening that to look at issues such as whether we need community spaces in inner-city communities, especially for the children. There is the breast-feeding policy and we are also developing a policy on the early detection of developmental disabilities.”

Dr McDonald argued that with the introduction of the Early Childhood Commission, slated to come on-stream in September, Jamaica would also be doing more to implement an integrated approach to early childhood issues. Early childhood is defined as up to eight years old.

“It (the commission) will deal with regulations and licensing as it relates to all the ministries. So, for example, they would say, ‘what does each ministry have on baby-friendly hospitals’ and then try to coordinate that, so mixed messages are not sent out,” she explained.

The agency, she said, would focus on training across the different sectors, and public education.