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.