Parenting has never been an easy job. This Parenting Month, UNICEF USA highlights the importance of mental health support as parents carry an even heavier load than normal.

Xu, 27, and his wife Del, 25, play with their sons, Khon, 1, and Muih, 7, inside their home in Gia Lai, in the Central Highlands region of Vietnam.© UNICEF/UNI310334/Sinis VII

By Alexandra Grossi

After more than a year of the pandemic, parents and caregivers continue to struggle to keep children learning and their families functioning, often in the face of worsening poverty. Parents are forced to balance their responsibilities for child care and employment, with a disproportionate burden placed on women. “COVID-19 and its socio-economic consequences have piled new forms of stress onto parents and exacerbated pre-existing vulnerabilities and adversity within families,” says Paloma Escudero, UNICEF Director of Communications. The repercussions contribute to a devastating mental health crisis affecting families and young people. To meet those needs, UNICEF has made UNICEF mental health a 2021 global advocacy priority

In a recent Congressional briefing on mental health hosted by UNICEF USA, Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) stressed that “the Lancet Commission estimated 15 to 23 percent of children around the world live with a parent with a mental disorder.” Children can only thrive and flourish when they feel safe and protected, when family, caregiver and community connections are stable and when their basic needs are met. This makes our work to reimagine the future for every child even more urgent, and we cannot do it without reimagining parenting.

Evidence-based parenting programs, mental health services for parents and family-friendly policies are proven accelerators to drive change across multiple child life outcomes. The pandemic has highlighted the importance of nurturing care and parenting in fulfilling the rights of every child.

As U.S. government leaders seek ongoing ways to provide COVID-19 support and relief, greater access to mental health services and psychosocial support for children, youth and their families must be a priority both in the short- and long-term.UNICEF is also calling on governments and businesses to invest in scaling up parenting programs and family-friendly policies to build more resilient, prosperous and fair societies

UNICEF USA has proudly partnered with the organization ZERO TO THREE to advocate for family-friendly policies. These policy solutions include investing in quality, accessible and affordable child care; paid leave; early head start programs; infant and early childhood mental health care; and economic security and family support. As UNICEF Executive Director, Henrietta Fore has said: “To truly be ‘For Every Child,’ you have to also be ‘For Every Parent,’ and that means making sure parents have the time necessary to provide their children with a nurturing and loving environment upon which their learning, emotional and social development depends.”

UNICEF USA staff member Fabienne Goldgaber, became a new parent during the pandemic. One of the biggest takeaways from her personal experience was learning to ask for help and giving herself the grace as a new mom trying to figure things out. “About a month after I gave birth, I experienced mild postpartum depression. I had to really focus on my mental health once I recognized what was happening … I knew I had to find time to make me happy in order to give my daughter what she needs and part of that included reaching out to my therapist. More support in terms of mental health is needed for new parents, and parents in general, especially after giving birth. Whether it’s the first, second or third [child], it’s still a transition and adjustment.” 

Now more than ever, we need to reimagine the support we give to parents so that they have the time, resources and services to give children the best start in life. UNICEF Parenting continues to grow and serve as a trusted reference point for parents around the world, especially in navigating the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.Speak out

Call on Congress to address the need for increased investment in mental health and psychosocial support for children in global programs as well as for children in the U.S.

The information in this web story is intended for the sole purpose of educating the user regarding topics related to mental health and is not meant as a substitute for professional medical advice or treatment. Those who are at risk should seek immediate assistance from emergency personnel or call 911. 

Pandemic has had drastic effects on the world economy leaving many people jobless, but the IT industry has stood the storm quite well. It has been one of the few most stable fields. The thrashing effects of COVID-19 do not seem to be even touching the IT industry as it is rapidly growing and is all set to hit close to $6 trillion by 2023.

The pace of IT market growth is quite impressive. It is presumed that the IT outsourcing market seems to be growing from a figure of $342.9 billion in 2020 to $410.2 billion by 2027, which is unimaginably high in such a condition of global economic crisis.

This begs for the need for more IT experts in the field and it seems to grow from 24 million currently to over 28.7 million IT experts and developers by 2024. If you’ve responded to this need and want to start a career in IT, here are some aspects of the job, and the learning curve leading up to it, you should be aware of.

Essentials You Should Know Before Starting a Career in IT
Being a beginner at anything can be frustrating. You might be unsure about every single step you take or lack help in choosing a career, programming language, or devising a learning plan.

Following is an account of 10 things that might sound so simple to many IT experts but weren’t so obvious at the start of their IT career.

Focus on Practice-Based Learning
Beginners often place too much emphasis on theory, while programming is a kind of practical skill. So, ensure you’re focusing on the practical part, coding itself. So when you are choosing programming learning sources, keep in mind code practicing availability. Here we have the top five online programming courses and platforms where you can find such courses:

Codecademy
Codecademy is an effective online resource with professional guidance to start off with basics. But make sure to practice the concepts yourself, as their course lacks the practical part to some extent.

Stanford Online
Stanford Online has an excellent number of introductory courses with many teaching assistants that help students understand the Basics of IT thoroughly.

Udacity
Udacity has many courses launched for individuals, for businesses and even government. It offers an extensive learning archive and the assistance of the mentors. Which is quite helpful to learn programming languages.

Codegym
Codegym Java course contains 1200+ practical tasks. It starts with the basics, Java Syntax, and logically moves to the complicated learning. The best part is that 80% of the learning process is based on practical assignments, which helps you grasp programming quite well.

EdX
Tonnes of tutorials on edX help build the useful concepts that every programmer requires to start his career in IT, especially programming.

Communicate
Newbies lack experience and don’t consider seeking guidance from experts. Make sure that you aren’t one of those beginners.

Joining communities such as Stackoverflow, Reddit, CodeRanch and others don’t only have you covered for expert advice and guidance, but also provide you a sense of moral support. Create your account on Github, read and comment on HackerNews and freeCodeCamp… Look for different communities!

You can interact with your fellows who’re facing the same situations, being able to relate to someone else’s progress helps a lot with releasing stress.

The communities have thousands of IT experts with years of hands-on experience who can show you the actual picture of many situations and keep you from taking wrong turns as you head towards your goals.

Here are a few resources you can browse for advice and support:

Develop a Habit of Good Research
Never try to save your time on research. Google is a whole world of information. Superficial skimming about a certain topic won’t help you at all. But do it in moderation, otherwise you risk burying yourself in a heap of informational waste. So, build a habit of diligent research.

Stick to Basics at the Start
Practice is essential no doubt, but you won’t be able to practice without solid base knowledge, so go step-by-step and do not skip learning the fundamentals of programming first before moving on to the concepts of higher complexity. This way learning complicated levels would be easier. Skipping the basics is just like skipping the alphabet and directly heading towards writing a whole essay.

Learn Several Programming Languages
Many beginners stick to one programming language only and deem it sufficient, while others think that learning many of them at once is a good idea. But both of them are wrong.

Taking the right decision regarding what languages to learn and how to order them is important. Do not try to stuff your brain with many languages at a time, though settling for just one programming language for the rest of your career isn’t good either.

Take it in a sequential order, and start from Java, for example. It has a robust structure that helps you develop a very thorough understanding of how programming actually works. After that, grasping other languages won’t be that hectic for you.

Be Open for Changes
Working with a “know-it-all” attitude doesn’t work well with an IT career. No matter how long you’ve been in the field or how well you have trained yourself at it, there’s always a lot to learn about programming as this field is one of the fastest-growing ones. Growth comes with several changes and innovations.

As the programming field is growing daily, do not try to be stubborn about your concepts, never step out of the way of learning. Keep learning new things and stay up-to-date and well informed to the maximum possible level. Because obviously, you don’t want to be somebody with old-school technical knowledge. You need to keep up the pace if you wish to stay in the race!

Organize Yourself
Being a mess can end you up with a mess! And here, mess refers to those unorganized working patterns. Being unorganized can generally be disastrous to not only your work but to your mental health as well. No doubt what you do is important but how you do it is equally important.

Being a programmer and unorganized would only increase your pressure reducing your efficiency. Organize your projects, set reminders, make schedules for yourself accordingly and make sure to follow them. Without schedules all you do is waste your time, ending up all stressed out and frustrated.

Focus on Fewer Things at a Time
Some people can’t help thinking about things they are not doing and need to do while doing other things. Similarly, other people tend to commit to more than one task at a time. They wonder if this might be a good way to increase efficiency levels.

But unfortunately, the reality is the other way around. Trying to handle more than 1 task at a time will just end up messing up all the tasks you’re trying to accomplish. Try to focus on one of your goals, whether it’s a project or learning a programming language, everything takes a lot of individual focus and attention to be accomplished quite well.

Fight the Obstacles
The most heart-breaking part is to see talented people giving up as they see obstacles coming their way.

Don’t give up no matter what, believe in yourself and your potential energy that can help you fight every single obstacle. No matter how hard things might get in your way, be ready to face it. And in no time you’ll gain confidence that will make you simply unstoppable in the field.

Relax and Enjoy Your Work
People say that if you love your work, you don’t work a single day in your life. You’re just having fun every day. And no professional can be good at their work unless they love it and are passionate about it. Similar is the case with IT professionals, no doubt this requires long hours of focus. But the day you fall in love with what you do, you definitely will not want to stop and programming would be your favorite piece of cake.

So, just relax and do not stress yourself about things that get frustrating in the beginning. Just love your work and things will start getting a lot better in just no time.

Conclusion
These 10 recommendations have been deduced by many experts to help newbies see a bigger picture at the start to understand things better and not take steps they might regret taking later on.

Even if you’re not a beginner and regret some moves, it’s never too late to make a change. So stick to these 10 tips to make sure you never end up saying that “wish I knew this in the start!” at some point in your career. Good luck!