CDRF Participates in the Early Childhood Development Training in University College London

From April 29 to May 3, Secretary General Lu Mai of the CDRF led a nine-member delegation to go to University College London (UCL) to participate in a training program on early childhood development and Reach Up. Prof. Sally McGregor, an expert in early childhood development, and Dr. Susan Chang-Lopez, the responsible person of the Reach Up curriculum, conducted detailed explanation and training for the CDRF delegation.

At the beginning of the training, Secretary General Lu Mai, on behalf of the CDRF, extended sincere gratitude to the experts of the training program. Under the guidance of Prof. McGregor, the CDRF launched the "China Rural Education and Child Health (China REACH) Program" targeting rural children aged 0-3 first in Huachi County, Sichuan Province, and achieved favorable results. Secretary General Lu Mai introduced the progress and international influence of "China REACH" and shared some of the assessment results.

Prof. McGregor was glad to hear the achievements of "China REACH" and honored to be a part of the program. She said that when the program was piloted in countries like Jamaica at first, she did not expect that it would be promoted on such a large scale. China's project experience would benefit Reach Up. However, while the program is being expanded, more elaborate measures for quality control are necessary to ensure the supervision and management of home visiting.

In the later part of the training, Prof. Sally McGregor and Dr. Susan Chang-Lopez explained the specific contents of the early childhood development curriculum and relevant child development theories to allow the CDRF delegation to have a deeper understanding of the design concept and scientific basis of the program and better apply them to practice. In terms of the adaptability of home visits in poverty-stricken areas in China, the experts answered the questions collected from pilot areas one by one. Especially, the experts deeply exchanged with the CDRF delegation in regard to quality control of home visits, reliability of assessment, use of toys, training, and promotion, and shared many cases in countries like Jamaica, Bangladesh, and Peru.

The CDRF delegation benefited greatly from this training. They not only learned the design principles and development of the program, but also came up with new methods and perspectives while integrating what they learned with the actual situation of China.

During the training, Secretary General Lu Mai granted the Certificate of Chief Consultant of "China REACH" to Prof. Sally McGregor and the Special Contribution Award to Dr. Susan Chang-Lopez in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the CDRF.