Children develop best in supportive families, connected to each other in
an enriching community. OCD focuses on fostering reciprocal and responsive
relationships between parent and children, providing material and social
supports to families in distressed neighborhoods, and strengthening whole
communities and social service systems to better support the development of
children and families.
Young children develop best in a safe and caring environment, with engaging
activities and freedom to explore and play. OCD focuses on improving quality
and access in various developmental contexts of early childhood, from promoting
at-home learning with parents, to improving quality in child care setting, to
informing policies that invest in early childhood.
Children
learn in schools, after-school programs, and at home. OCD focuses on
strengthening the various pathways to learning, both academically and in social
and emotional terms. We help to connect parents to teachers, after-school
providers to schools, academic support programs to engaging experimental learning
experiences, and social/emotional development to academic success.
Throughout the world, children without parental care need a safe and
caring family-like environment, in addition to materially sufficient orphanages.
Through over a decade of work in Russia, Latin America, and most recently
China, OCD has found that it is possible to provide family-like care and
environments within the walls of orphanages. We have been engaged in various
efforts, with partners like UNICEF, USAID, and other NGOs, to both understand
the needs and challenges of children without parental care around the world and
to promote and evaluate efforts to seek alternatives to traditional orphanage
care.