Welcome to the 2nd issue of Start Strong's new e-newsletter. The aim of the e-newsletter, which we plan to
publish every 1 to 2 months, is to provide an update on the work of Start Strong and on policy and research
developments - both in Ireland and internationally - on the care and
education of young children. If you missed the February issue, previous issues of the e-newsletter are available on our archive.
During the coming months, Start Strong will be carrying out a consultation process on a vision for early childhood education and care in Ireland in 2020. We hope the consultation process will open up a debate about what we want
services and supports for young children and their families to look
like in 2020, and about what Government policies we need to get there. We will be talking to a wide range of stakeholders, as well as inviting submissions from the public.
At the end of the consultation process, we plan to have a set of policy proposals that could form the basis of a 10-year National Plan for Early Childhood. As part of our campaign for a 10-year plan (which we are calling Children 2020), we will then present our proposals to the Government and to opposition political parties.
The consultation process will be facilitated by Candy Murphy, who has been involved for many years in the analysis of childcare policy in Ireland, and who has extensive experience in facilitation and advocacy. Start Strong is currently working with Candy and with our Research Advisory Group on plans for the consultation process. Further details will be available in future issues of this e-newsletter and on the Research section of our website.
Once the consultation process is complete, we will then subject our policy proposals to cost-benefit analysis. We are currently in the process of appointing economic consultants to carry this out.
Delivering public services through the private sector - a balancing act?
In a recent entry (called 'A Balancing Act') on her blog, Ciairín de Buis - Start Strong's Director - raised an issue that is fundamental to the future direction of care and education services for young children in Ireland: can we successfully manage the balancing act of providing what is essentially a public service through the private sector?
Ciairín's blog was motivated by a lively discussion at the launch of the 2009 NCNA Members Survey, 'Irish Childcare in Recession?'. At the event many managers of private services spoke of the challenge of delivering a quality service to children while at the same time maintaining a viable business during the recession. Amongst those surveyed the recession has been making itself felt in many ways, including an increased level of vacancies, cuts in the numbers of staff employed, and reduced fees. Some of the service providers who spoke during the meeting said they were concerned that these changes could impact on the quality of service provided.
When the Free Pre-School Year was introduced recently, the decision was taken to make it available through existing providers, so the scheme builds on Ireland's current mix of private and community provision. Whether or not this was the right decision, we surely need a debate on whether this is the direction in which we want to keep travelling in the years ahead. A subject for discussion in our forthcoming consultation process, perhaps? Read Ciairín's blog here.
The Department of Social and Family Affairs is currently undertaking a review of public policy on child income supports. The most prominent child income support in Ireland is Child Benefit, which accounts for approximately 80% of public funding in this area. Child Benefit has been used to meet multiple objectives, including the reduction of poverty, supporting parents with childcare costs, and recognising the value of women's work caring for children in the home. Other child income supports, which are targeted on low-income families, include the Qualified Child Increase and Family Income Supplement.
Start Strong's submission argues that the overall level of investment in child income supports should not be reduced as a short-term, cost-saving measure. However, we also argue that the review should be broad in scope, given the multiple objectives of child income supports, and that the review should form part of a wider debate around the need for a full range of supports for children and their families - a debate that would encompass services for children and families.
The provision of services for children and families in Ireland - especially care and education services for young children - is limited by international standards. According to the OECD's Family Database, Ireland's spending on services for families is among the lowest in the OECD, at 0.27% of GDP, compared to an OECD average of 0.82%. Start Strong believes that increasing public investment in quality care and education for young children could support parents with childcare costs and could at the same time help reduce poverty, both through removing a barrier to employment for parents and through prevention and early intervention to help break the inter-generational cycle of poverty and social exclusion. Read our submission here.
Equality and diversity - the early years are crucial
The OECD recently published a review of migrant education in Ireland, which was striking for its focus on the importance of early childhood education and care. The OECD praises the new Free Pre-School Year, but calls for stronger measures to ensure that minority children - including immigrant children - benefit equally from the scheme.
They note the importance of the Aistear curriculum framework and of the Diversity and Equality Guidelines for practitioners, but argue that further training of childcare workers on equality/diversity issues is required. They also call for actions to promote engagement with parents of young minority children through a comprehensive communications strategy that should include language support for both children and parents. The OECD also calls for the Early Start programme in disadvantaged schools to be integrated with the Free Pre-School Year as 'one package' rather than remaining a separate project. Read the OECD report here.
Given the messages from the OECD, a conference held in Dublin in February on equality and diversity issues was particularly timely. The purpose of the conference, which was organised by EDeNn (the Equality and Diversity Early Childhood National Network) was to raise awareness of equality and anti-bias approaches within early childhood education and care, and to highlight the value of training for practitioners on racism and other forms of discrimination. A central theme was the importance not just of celebrating diversity, but of challenging prejudice. As Dalvir Gill, a guest speaker at the conference, said, 'There is no quality without equality.'
From a policy perspective, two key issues arose at the conference. Firstly, equality and diversity training for practitioners should be mainstreamed, to become an essential feature of the training of all early years practitioners. A model for such training has been developed by the éist
project. One workshop looked at the concept of an 'Equality Named Coordinator' in every setting to lead on equality issues, with the possibility of making funding for services conditional on their having somebody trained for this role. Secondly, the way in which services are organised and funded should not reinforce inequality through supporting a two-tier system of services for young children. More information is available here on EDeNn and the éist training project.
One of the dividing issues in the upcoming general election in the UK is likely to be policies on the family and on supports for young children. The Labour Government recently issued a green paper on families and relationships, titled 'Support for All'. At the same time the Centre for Social Justice - a think-tank (headed by Iain Duncan Smith) that is influential in the Conservative Party - published its own 'Green Paper on the Family'.
Recognising the scale of social change in recent decades, the Government's green paper argues that family life and marriage are essentially private matters, and that the role of Government is to provide an enabling environment, for instance by enhancing parents' choices in balancing employment with bringing up children, and making it easier for fathers to be involved in bringing up their children. In relation to supports for young children, the Government proposes to:
meet its target of a 'Children's Centre' in every community, providing integrated services for children and families, including childcare/early education, health services, and family and parenting support.
extend the free early education entitlement to 2-year olds in families on low or modest incomes. (The entitlement, which is similar to the Free Pre-School scheme in Ireland, is already available for 3 and 4 year olds.)
promote family-friendly working practices within workplaces.
develop resources to support fathers around the time of the birth of a child.
explore barriers to fathers' take-up of paternity leave, e.g. the notice period and eligibility rules. (There is 2 weeks' paid paternity leave in the UK, though it is only paid at statutory levels in the majority of cases.)
from April 2011, give fathers up to 6 months' additional paternity leave (up to 3 months of which may be paid) if the mother returns to work before the end of her maternity leave (which in the UK is 9 months' paid and 3 months' unpaid leave).
The Centre for Social Justice starts from the premise that 'children and adults in married couple families do best', and calls for Government to actively support family relationships in the home as a method of 'prevention and early intervention', to benefit children's development. In relation to supports for young children, the Centre for Social Justice proposes to:
turn Children's Centres into 'Family Hubs', changing their focus away from the care and education of young children towards the provision of supports for relationships and parenting.
give all parents access to high quality parenting programmes, delivered through Family Hubs.
enhance the role of public health nurses (Health Visitors) in providing supports for relationships and parenting in families with children under 3 years old.
introduce a transferable tax allowance for married couples, possibly just for those with young children in the first instance.
split the integrated Department for Children, Schools and Families into 2 separate Government departments: a Department for Families and a Department for Education.
Quality in childcare settings - findings linked to the Millennium Cohort Study (UK)
'Children of the 21st Century: The First Five Years' is a newly published collection of articles based on analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study in the UK, which is following the development of a nationally representative sample of 19,000 children from birth. This book looks at the children up to 2005, when they were 5 years old, examining their early development and the factors that shaped it.
One of the articles (ch.8, 'Childcare in the Pre-School Years' by Fiona Roberts et al.) supplements the analysis with detailed observations of 301 'childcare' settings attended by a sub-group of children from the cohort study. The observation of settings allowed assessment of both 'structural' and 'process' aspects of quality:
At age 3, children from advantaged families were significantly more likely to be in centre-based settings, whereas disadvantaged children tended to have informal childcare (e.g. relatives) or no non-parental care.
However, those disadvantaged children who did experience centre-based care received higher quality care than children from advantaged families, which the researchers suggest reflects the higher quality in public (local authority) provision than in private provision, and the UK Government's targeting of public resources to disadvantaged neighbourhoods.
The highest quality was observed in nurseries run by local authorities, in larger groups of children with high staff-child ratios, and where there was a high proportion of staff trained with teacher qualifications and a low proportion of unqualified staff.
The close link between the level of staff qualifications and the quality of interactions between staff and children demonstrates the importance in Ireland both of higher qualification requirements and of the forthcoming Workforce Development Plan. The research also poses questions about the appropriate public/private mix, given the current lack of public provision in Ireland. See the editor's blog on the book.
Impact of parenting on children's cognitive development
Research just published in the UK identifies the home learning environment and parenting as major factors explaining the substantial gap in early cognitive development between some children from low-income and middle-income families. The research, titled 'Low Income and Early Cognitive Development in the UK', was carried out by Jane Waldfogel (Columbia University) and Elizabeth Washbrook (Bristol University), and involved longitudinal analysis of a nationally representative sample of 12,000 British children from the Millennium Cohort Study.
The researchers found that children from the poorest fifth of families are already 11 months behind children from middle-income families in vocabulary tests at age 5. They analysed a wide range of factors that might explain the link between income and development, and found that nearly 50% of the explained gap in cognitive development could be explained by the home learning environment (e.g. parents reading to children, regular trips to the library) and parenting style (e.g. regular daily routines).
Relatively little of the development gap was explained by non-parental care / education in the early years. However, the researchers note that this finding may reflect data limitations, and that only a portion of the gap could be explained by the factors they examined.
In their conclusion, the researchers suggest that policies should target those factors that explain the gap in early cognitive development, and in particular they argue that it is crucial to identify effective parenting programmes. In Ireland, there are numerous parenting programmes at local level, and several are currently going through a process of rigorous evaluation. What has not yet begun is a wider public debate on whether and how Government policy might support parenting programmes. Read the research report here.
On 3 February, NCNA (the National Children's Nurseries Association) launched its annual Members' Survey, titled 'Irish Childcare in Recession?' The report provides data from the end of 2009 on the costs of places in its members' services, as well as vacancy rates, staff numbers, and numbers of inspections carried out of services during the year.
The report suggests a slight fall in the cost of a full-time place over the previous 12 months (from €174 to €168 per week), though the cost to parents remains extremely high by international standards. The cost of a sessional place immediately prior to the introduction of the Free Pre-School Year was €75 per week, which is higher than the €64.50 capitation grant provided by the Government, though the report notes considerable cost variation among service providers. For example, while the cost of a sessional place is €63 on average in Connacht, it is €89 in Dublin. And there is presumably further cost variation within each region, as the survey groups together both private and community services (62% of respondents were private, 34% community, and 4% other).
The report notes that only 69% of respondents had been inspected by the HSE during 2009, and argues that this reflects capacity constraints within the HSE resulting from the embargo on public service recruitment. Read the full report here.
National Childminding Week, which is running from 20th to 26th March, will be officially launched on Monday 22nd March by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Barry Andrews TD. The theme for the week is 'Kidz Just Want to Have Fun: Let's Go Out to Play'. National Childminders Week aims to profile developments in the sector and to raise awareness of the supports available for childminders.
This year for the first time there will also be a National Childminders Day - on Friday 26th March. The day aims to celebrate the contribution of childminders to the lives of the children they care for, their families and their communities. See details of events taking place during the week around the country.
NCNA conference - 'Children Creating and Cherishing their Environments'
The annual conference of the National Children's Nurseries Association (NCNA) will this year have as its theme 'Children Creating and Cherishing their Environments'. Keynote speakers are Tim Waller (University of Wolverhampton) who will speak on the Outdoor Environment, Peter Moss (Institute of Education in London) who will speak on the Political Environment, and Amelia Gambetti (Reggio Emilia) who will speak on the Artistic Environment. The conference will take place on Saturday 27th March at Bewley's Hotel in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. Places must be booked in advance - please contact Noleen on 01-4601138, ext.1
On Monday 29th March, the NCNA Reggio Emilia Network will be holding a seminar on the Reggio approach, in conjunction with the Tallaght West Childhood Development Initiative. The theme of the seminar is 'Images of Reggio Emilia' and the seminar will feature Amelia Gambetti, the International Network Coordinator for Reggio Children. The seminar will be at Rua Red, the South Dublin Arts Centre in Tallaght, from 7.30 to 9.30pm. For more information, please contact Kelly on 01-4601138, ext.3. Places are limited and must be booked in advance.
Association of Childcare Professionals - first annual conference
The Association of Childcare Professionals (Cork branch) will be holding its first national conference on Saturday 10 April in the Vienna Woods Hotel, Glanmire, Cork. The conference aims to support the planning, development and sustainability of a national professional body for childcare workers in Ireland. Speakers at the conference include Dr Mathias Urban (University of East London) and Dr Ann Gallagher (University of Surrey). Further information is available on the ACP website.
The annual conference of the Irish Preschool Play Association (IPPA) will have as its theme 'Rearing to Go'. Keynote speakers include Tim Gill (author of 'No Fear: Growing Up in a Risk-Averse Society'), Margy Whalley (Founding Head of the Pen Green Centre) and Lynn McNair (Head of Cowgate Under-5s Centre in Edinburgh). The conference will be held on Saturday 17th April at the Best Western Ashling Hotel, Parkgate Street, Dublin 8. For more details, email Caitlin Gaffney.
