Resources
FOCAL has developed a number of documents and films, emerging from our work in child care and community development. They serve as resources for child care programs, community organizations, state agencies, and policy makers.
Child Care
Child Care and Race: Why Race Matters position paper details FOCAL’s process for in confronting white on black violence, tense police-community relations and the need to bring fairness to our criminal justice system.
More Is Caught Than Taught (MCTT) is a comprehensive curriculum for the engagement of whole communities in realizing their visions and hopes for the early education and care of their children. The approach and tools that the guide provides challenge us all to be attentive to the behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs that we model for children, and to the messages that they catch from us.
The Baby Douglas DVD and the Mind the Meds campaign resulted from the passage of bill in Alabama in 2004 that criminalizes the administration of medication to children in certain circumstances in child care settings. The resources here continue to be relevant and extremely important for people who care for children. It is FOCAL’s experience that the details and scope of the law are widely unknown and misunderstood.
Coming Undone and Underprotected, Undersupported report on the steady rise of unlicensed child care facilities in the state of Alabama and the consequences and risks involved. They are essential reading for all policy makers and child advocates.
- Childcare and Race: Why Race Matters DOWNLOAD
- More Is Caught Than Taught: A Guide to Quality Child Care (1998) [order info coming soon]
- Baby Douglas DVD (2004) [order info coming soon]
- Mind the Meds (2005) – DOWNLOAD
- Coming Undone: The State of Child Care in Alabama (2005) – DOWNLOAD
- Underprotected: Undersupported: Low-Income Children at Risk (published by Applied Research Center, Oakland, California, 2009)
Community Development
Ours to Own reviews FOCAL’s participation in the unsuccessful tax reform campaign of 2003 and the lessons we learned about community organizing in the process. The Hurricane Katrina Report provides an overview of the activation of FOCAL’s network of supporters, partners, and constituents in response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast in 2005.
Building Power is a film that conveys a sense of FOCAL’s approaches to overcoming the challenges of systemic poverty and racism. Communities Act To Create Hope provides more details about approaches for engaging the visions and resources of groups of people and thereby engendering hope and action.
- Ours to Own: Tax Reform and Alabama’s Future (2004) – DOWNLOAD
- Hurricane Katrina Report (2006) – DOWNLOAD
- Building Power: People and Stories of the Federation of Child Care Centers of Alabama (2008)[order info coming soon]
- Communities Act To Create Hope: A Manual for Use in Community Organizing and Development (2010) [order info coming soon]
