A qualitative study of caregivers' attitudes about child care

Thirty-one caregivers and directors involved in various types of day care for young children were interviewed. Qualitative methods were used to assess their role identity constructs and attitudes toward parents and the child care profession. Caregivers thought of themselves as “mothers,” “grandmothers,” or “teachers.” These social role identities clustered with attitudes about parents and professional role (e.g., “mothers” tended to see parents as neglectful, while “teachers” felt parents failed to reinforce progress made in day care). The authors concluded that conflict over attachment issues contributed to problems between parents and caregivers.     

Childcare center directors' perceptions of their work environments: a comparison of for-profit and non-profit programs

Perceptions of childcare center directors in for-profit and non-profit childcare centers were examined. Previous research indicates that childcare employees are poorly compensated, not properly trained, and dissatisfied with their work environment. This study explores further into the training, work environment, and job satisfactions of childcare center directors. Questionnaires were distributed throughout a southeast state in the United States to three hundred and ten childcare center directors from for-profit and non-profit centers. Levels of job satisfaction, work environments (including employment benefits and challenges), and the educational and training experiences of for-profit and non-profit childcare center directors were examined. There were no significant differences between for-profit and non-profit center directors in their perceptions of job satisfaction and in their reports of benefits and challenges. However, there was a significant difference in education level of directors with directors of non-profit centers having higher educational attainment than directors of for-profit centers.     

"Block the sun, not the fun": evaluation of a skin cancer prevention program for child care centers.

INTRODUCTION: This paper describes the evaluation of a skin cancer prevention program for preschools and daycare centers. The intervention was targeted primarily at staff of child care centers, with the aim of increasing use of sun protection practices for young children while attending these centers. Secondary target groups included parents and the children themselves. The intervention, which adopted the slogan, "Block the Sun, Not the Fun," included workshops for child care center staff, and information/activity packets for parents. METHODS: Twenty-seven preschools and daycare centers were randomly assigned to an intervention or wait-list control group. The intervention group received the intervention during the spring of 1994; the wait-list control group received the intervention during the spring of 1995. Evaluation consisted of interviews with center directors, observations of practices, and review of written policies before the intervention (in summer, 1993) and after the intervention (in summer, 1994). A survey of 201 parents was conducted during late summer 1994. RESULTS: While the intervention did not appear to change the sun protection attitudes or practices of parents, or use of clothing and shade at child care centers, results suggested significant changes in the sun protection knowledge/attitudes of center directors and the use of sunscreen at child care centers. Additionally, parents with children attending centers in the intervention group were more likely to be satisfied with sun protection practices at their centers. CONCLUSION: This low-intensity intervention appears to be effective at changing sun protection attitudes and sunscreen use at child care centers, and can be easily replicated. However, high staff turnover at child care centers would suggest that "boosters" will be necessary to sustain the impact. More intensive efforts directed at social norms are likely to be necessary to change clothing and outdoor play practices.     

An analysis of the deep social structure preventing the development of a national policy for children and families in the United States

The United States is one of the few economically developed nations without a national policy supporting children and their families. This paper suggests that the United States has a unique national ideology, based on the “Calvinistic Ethic,” which results in opposition to not only social programs for children and families, but to all government supported welfare programs. Such an ethic is not found in European countries. Finally, since the United States does not have a national family policy, millions of children and their families go without health care, lack social services, and suffer from inadequate economic supports.     

Encouraging Men to Enter the Field of Child Care: What Can Be Done?

Child care has traditionally been viewed by society as “women's work”. However, men who work in child care programs help challenge stereotypes and allow children to view males from a different perspective. The question then becomes one of how to encourage men to enter the field of child care. This article examines a few of the obstacles that prevent men from working in child care centers and provides one man's story about how he came to work in a child care facility. This is followed by suggestions of ways men could be encouraged to enter and stay in the field of early childhood education.     

Convergent or divergent? Teacher questions to three-year-old children in day care

Open-ended, divergent questions have been found to be important for children's cognitive and language development. However, there is a paucity of research concerning the types of questions that teachers ask in day care centers that serve primarily children from low-income families. In this study, the types of teachers' questions to 50 three-year-olds [25 boys and 25 girls] from low-income families were analyzed. The total sample of 36-42 month-old children was observed in 10 day care centers. Each child was observed for 80 minutes across five typical day care settings. All of the “true” questions were coded as convergent or divergent, and the children's responses to these questions were analyzed. There were a total of 667 “true” questions asked during approximately 70 hours of observation. For both boys and girls, 88#pc of the questions were convergent and 12#pc divergent. The children were equally compliant to convergent and divergent questions. These day care children were overwhelmingly asked convergent questions [p #lt.001] by teachers. Three-year-olds are equally capable of answering divergent and convergent questions. These results indicate that teachers need training in how to ask more divergent questions to young children in order to enhance language and cognitive development.     

Child poverty as public policy: direct provision and asylum seeker children in the Republic of Ireland

This paper evaluates responses to asylum seeker children in Ireland from a child poverty perspective and from that of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It draws upon research undertaken in early 2001 on behalf of the Irish Refugee Council among asylum seeker families with children in Cork, Limerick and Ennis on their experiences of poverty and social exclusion. The research was primarily qualitative. Interviews with adult members of households and some children were triangulated with data on benefit entitlements and take-up, household consumption, accommodation and amenities. The research sought to ascertain levels of income poverty and material deprivation. A range of indictors of child poverty and social exclusion were also employed. The research found that asylum seeker children experienced extreme income poverty, material deprivation, housing deprivation and social exclusion in considerable part due to the imposition of a system of lesser welfare entitlements, known as “direct provision”, introduced in April 2000. The paper argues that state-fostered social exclusion of asylum seeker children resulting from “direct provision” is contrary to Ireland's obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the goals of the National Children's Strategy and the goals of the National Anti-Poverty Strategy.     

Rebalanced and Refocused Social Work Practice?

The 1970s heralded the beginnings of a major shift in focus within child care social work in the United Kingdom, and the preventive, family support approach that had characterised practice since the 1940s was gradually, but decisively, replaced by a central concern with child abuse. This paper outlines the rise and dominance of child protection work in the United Kingdom before moving on to consider the legislative attempt, via the Children Act 1989 in England and Wales and the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, to address this situation. The “refocusing debate” of the 1990s is then discussed and consideration given to local research that has called the central premise underpinning this debate into question. The paper concludes by suggesting that social workers in Northern Ireland are still struggling to shift away from a preoccupation with the identification and management of risk and poses some questions regarding the future of social work with children and families.     

“Omics” research,monetization of intellectual property and fragmentation of knowledge: can clinical epidemiology strengthen integrative research?

An analysis of the contributions of “omics technologies” to human health and clinical care needs to address the relationships between internal issues (e.g., methodological shortcomings in “omics” research and clinical biology) and external influences. Among the latter, monetization of intellectual property (IP) appears to be a powerful force favoring methodological limitations and an excessive reductionism and fragmentation of biological knowledge. Following economic successes in other industries (semiconductors, software, and “dot-coms”), monetization of IP tries to market small fragments of big research “puzzles”; the strategy seems partly responsible for the biotech industry having underperformed methodological, clinical, and economic expectations. Hence, internal, purely scientific reasons can hardly explain failures in the application of long-proven principles of clinical epidemiology to the discovery and validation of diagnostic and prognostic tests. Nevertheless, this paper also sketches methodological proposals that may help integrate microbiological, clinical, and environmental evidence. Clinical and epidemiological reasoning, knowledge, and methods need to be applied on a much wider scale than until now by “omics” studies that aim at making inferences relevant for human beings. Rather than adopting the values and norms of “science business,” “omics research” could apply a diversity of clinicoepidemiological models favoring integrative research.     

Language interaction techniques for stimulating the development of at risk children in infant and preschool day care

It is often assumed that children's language will develop normally in the average, “good” day care and home environments. In fact teachers and parents from all social backgrounds vary widely in the quality of language interaction they furnish to children in the early years. These variations, moreover, are highly correlated with how well children develop language and other skills. Over a series of research projects in both day care and the home, principles and methods have been devised that have been shown to enable both normal and at risk young children to develop high and long-lasting competencies in language and other cognitive and social skills. The approach centers on engaging the whole child to interact with language informally in play and the ordinary routines of child care, both individually and in small groups, and emphasizing both the social, communicative and cognitive functions of language. A variety of specific techniques for use in day care are described and illustrated with several successful cases with at risk children.     

Between iatrotropic stimulus and interiatric referral: the domain of primary care research

The “iatrotropic stimulus” is a typical example of Alvan Feinstein's terminology and his clinical way of thinking about medical research. Feinstein specified “interiatric referral” as an additional important factor affecting “the likelihood that patients will appear at the particular setting in which research is being conducted.” He emphasized these phenomena as highly relevant for clinical judgment, clinical research, and clinical epidemiology. This has stimulated the realization of original clinical research in international primary medical care. It has helped to recognize the characteristics of the spectrum of health problem and morbidity patterns presented to primary care physicians and to acknowledge the position of generalistic primary care research between open population research and clinical research in referred (specialist) care. Accordingly, primary care-specific challenges in investigating (early) diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and referral decisions have emerged. This research supports adequate decision-making by the primary care physician, which is important for effective health care. Although Feinstein was a clinical specialist and has always lived in a country without a very strong primary care tradition, he not only recognized the value of primary care research but also substantially contributed to its development.     

Quality child care: what does it mean for individual infants, parents and caregivers?

It is argued that previous research on child care quality fits a “black box” model where individual characteristics and the experiences of children, parents and caregivers are largely ignored as factors influencing outcome. An individual model of quality child care is presented in which infant-caregiver, parent-caregiver and peer relationships are the central features of a model which considers the influence of pre-care differences and the effect of program characteristics and standards on the well-being of children, parents and caregivers.     

Developmental awareness and moral stage development in child Abuse

In an attempt to better understand why children who have been sexually assaulted commonly fail to reveal their victimization to parents or other adults, a study was undertaken in which the “engagement strategies” of 41 perpetrators were examined, exploring common rationalizations, threats, etc. aimed at insuring continued silence on the part of the victim. The “appeal” for silence offered by the perpetrator to the child was analyzed according to Kohlberg's stages of moral development.

Results indicate that perpetrators appear to alter their engagement strategies to coincide with the developmental level of the child, thus further insuring silence by appealing to criteria for assessing “appropriate” or “inappropriate” behaviors (eg. sexual contact) which are developmentally consistent with the child's level of cognition and moral reasoning.     

Children's Ways of Experiencing Peer Interaction

Educational practice in age integrated child groups rests on the assumption that children learn from their peers. The benefits of age integrated teaching is to enhance the value of heterogeneity in child groups. The fact that children are different from each other with different experiences is seen as an asset, which both children and teachers can benefit from. 22 children in a school class with children of mixed age; ranging from 7-9 years, were interviewed about their conceptions of peer interaction. How do children conceive peer collaboration, and what does it mean to children to teach someone something? A phenomenographic research approach is being used to discern the variation in ways of thinking about how children do when they teach someone something, and how they conceive peer collaboration at school. Children are conscious about the fact that they are able to teach their peers, and they can express this in different ways. Children also shift in their roles as “teacher” and “learner”. In some examples it is the “teacher” who plays the active role, in others it is the “learner” who has to be active by imitating the model/teacher.     

The Contextuality of Children's Communication Difficulties in Specialist Practice: A Sociological Account

This paper reports findings from fieldwork in situations that brought young children and child welfare practitioners together with the aim of diagnosing and treating children's communication difficulties. The findings suggest that communication difficulties tend to be treated as a property of the individual child rather than as an emergent, contextual property of interaction. The attention will be steered from clinical definitions of “impairment” and “disability” to dynamics of social interaction, where understandings of “good” and “normal” communication play a central role. The findings have implications for current recommendations for good practice, which derive from needs-led, rights-led and skills-led approaches.     

The organisational and professional context of the first acpc conference

The theme of today's conference “Partnership in a Changing Environment” is highly significant and could be adopted for almost any major conference in the health and personal social services field. “Partnership” is an “in” word, and like quality and other euphemisms it has become part of our rhetoric. Its definition and translation into practice at different points in our organisations, is however more problematic. For example in the area of child protection there has been a tendency to think of partnership as based around case conferences, but that is too far into the process to be of value to families or professionals. Partnership starts at policy making and today's conference is an attempt at bringing together the principal partners who should influence policy, as well as what happens further into the system when parents and children become engaged. The second part of today's theme “a changing environment” also applies throughout the public service. In recent years we have become accustomed to rolling organisational change. The most recent manifestations of this in Northern Ireland have been the introduction of general management throughout the services, the separation and redefinition of purchaser and provider functions, and more recently, the establishment of HPSS trusts. But change to the environment within which partnership in child protection takes place is influenced by forces other than organisational development. Research in child care over the last 15 years, the introduction of the Children Act 1989 in Great Britain and the prospect of similar legislation here within the next year or two, the impact of major reports, sometimes focusing on tragic events and the publication by the Inspectorate of the investigation into the case of Martin Huston have served to perpetuate change.     

Children drawing: Are young children really scribbling?

Most research on children's drawing concerns itself with analyzing configural end products, whilst all that precedes them is dubbed “scribbling”, and has received scant attention. This paper, based on detailed longitudinal and cross-sectional studies, puts forward evidence which suggests that the child builds iconography on a substratum of symbolizations which are as much to do with movement and time as they are with configuration. The paper describes how the child experiments with 2D representation much earlier than has been commonly accepted, before and during the “scribbling stage”. Investigations made by the child at this time include those which monitor and represent the movement of imagined objects through space and time. Differing, interacting modes of representation are described, hitherto ignored by most investigators, which are mutually reciprocal in their contribution to the foundations of later iconography. More than this, these experiments aid the child in understanding the nature of the world.

The discussion is placed within a developmental context which starts from the child's early mark-making experience, where drawing defines basic axes and trajectories of body dynamism. From there, the emergence of different modes of representation leads to depictions of a topological nature. Transition from topological space to early (and rather startling) configural representation is described, as this is based on discoveries made by the child in the so-called “scribbling stage”. Implications for childcare and education are considered.     

When, How and Why Child Caregivers Respond to Children's Behaviors

In a qualitative study, 42 child caregivers participated in one of six focus groups. They were asked to address three questions in open-ended discussion. “What child behaviors are of concern to you?”, “How do you respond to these behaviors?”, and “How do you make the decision about your response?” Responses were analyzed and categorized to examine when, how, and why caregivers discipline young children. Results showed that aggression, not listening, and sexually-related behaviors were most often mentioned by caregivers as behaviors of concern to them. The most frequently mentioned disciplinary strategies were time-out, explanation, and redirection. The question related to how caregivers make decisions about responding to misbehaviors was analyzed in terms of attributions made by caregivers about misbehaviors. The majority of caregivers indicated that their response was dependent of the circumstances. Most frequently mentioned attributions were about the children themselves, for instance, their age, gender, or state. Also mentioned were home and family, society, caregiver emotion, and the child care setting. Results also showed that caregivers with higher levels of early childhood education and more experience, and those working with smaller group sizes and smaller adult-to-chiid ratios provided more thoughtful answers that were more congruent with developmental appropriateness.     

Psychological screening in the course of the health control of four-year-old children

The health control of four-year-old Swedish children will include an examination of possible psychologtcal abnormalities and defects. The methods which have been worked out for this purpose by a committee of the Social Council include two main components. A nurse will carry out an interview with the child's caretaker and then evaluate the child's behavior. In addition, a physician will make an attempt to evaluate the child's development. The “risk children” will then be selected for further psychological investigation.

An attempt has been made to test the efficiency of the screening methods mentioned. The evaluations by the child care centers have been compared to more comprehensive clinical-psychological investigations and the results show good agreement between the two teams.

The Investigation has been carried out at PBU, Stockholm (Chief physician Hans Curman, psychologist Lillian Gottfarb).     

Resilience and Young People Leaving Care

How do we promote the resilience of young people leaving care? This article explores this question by bringing together research findings on the resilience of young people from disadvantaged family backgrounds with research studies on young people leaving care. These findings are applied to young people during their journey to adulthood: their lives in care, their transitions from care, and their lives after care. It is suggested that three main groups of young people can be identified from leaving care research studies: young people “moving on”, “survivors” and “victims”. It is argued that promoting the resilience of young people leaving care will require more comprehensive services across their life course. This will include, first, better quality care, providing more stability, holistic preparation, a positive sense of identity and assistance with education; second, opportunities for more gradual transitions from care, less accelerated and compressed, and more akin to normative transitions; and third, the provision of better quality and more extended support.