Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Organization and Retrieval of Information at theCaribbean Child Development Centre, University of the West Indies, Open Campus

Iksha Sawyers, at the Caribbean Child Development Centre, of the University of the West Indies. Open Campus, will present this poster session.

The Caribbean Child Development Centre is a member of the Consortium for Social Development and Research, of the University of the West Indies, Open campus, with a mandate related to children and child development.

Located on the Mona Campus, our vision is to be the premiere Caribbean academic centre dedicated to the improvement of the quality of life for our children. Our mission is to provide support for holistic development for Caribbean children through collaborative research to inform policy and program development, information management and dissemination, training and public service and advocacy.

The CCDC documentation centre caters to the information needs of users primarily through technology and informational services. Our main aim is to provide current material and quality service to all users who need information on children and families, especially users within Jamaica and the Caribbean. These users include students at the primary, secondary and tertiary (including post-graduate) levels, teachers, researchers, the NGO community, parents and practitioners. We also aim to support programmes offered by the Open Campus of the University of the West Indies and other related institutions.

Most of our documentation is electronically based. An important part of our documentation work includes the digitization and provision of material for access on the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Children’s Institute database http://iin.oea.org/search/advqueryopd.asp.

This hemispheric Institute, based in Uruguay, collects and disseminates documentation, project and programme information across the Americas. The CCDC Documentation Centre is the centre for these databases in the Caribbean. We facilitate training for other libraries in the use of these databases, receive updates from the IIN and provide information for the Caribbean region.

Our other internet-based resources include:

• The Caribbean Child Development Centre’s (CCDC) website http://uwi.edu/ccdc/index.htm

• The Caribbean Early Childhood Development (CaribECD) webpage
http://www.uwi.edu/uwioutreach/caribecd/default.aspx which allows organizations and individuals in the field to build partnership, share ideas and work together in child related issues,

• CCDC Bibliographic Database http://ccdcresearch.mona.uwi.edu/reference, a comprehensive database on child-related issues,

• CCDC’s Violence Prevention Programmes database
http://ccdcresearch.mona.uwi.edu/programme/ which highlights violence prevention programmes for children in Jamaica,

• HIV Intervention Programmes Database. http://ccdcresearch.mona.uwi.edu/hivprogramme/ which identifies programmes in Jamaica which focuses on care of children with HIV (healthcare service and support services).

These resources allow research carried out in Jamaica and the Caribbean to be represented internationally and in the region, and increase the visibility of Jamaican and Caribbean research for the wider community.

Overall goal:

• To increase the currency, dissemination and utilization of the databases for children.
• To increase the exposure of our materials and databases for the young people of Jamaica.
• To increase the dissemination of the findings from the databases regionally and internationally.
• To increase the utilization of the database

There will be two - three (2-3) posters highlighting databases, showing findings from each study and database relevance to clientele.

No comments: