What the experts say on childcare
Dr Jean Whyte, director of research at the Centre for Children's Studies in Trinity College Dublin
What children need: Parents should be paid to be in the home for the first year of a child's life, if they want to be. Government-subsidised pre-school playgroups and one-to-one attention for under-twos should be provided in all care settings.
Best outcomes for children arise from having consistent high-quality care during their first year. The parent is the obvious person to provide this, so the Government should enable it, as many other EU states do. At the age of three, a child should be given a morning place in an affordable, approved, Government-subsidised playgroup for a minimum of three and a half hours, five days a week. New research at TCD, to be published shortly, will show the positive benefits of pre-school playgroups for both children and parents, for whom playgroups are an opportunity to improve parent-child interaction. In combination with a caring childminder a few afternoons a week, a morning playgroup would free parents to re-enter the workforce gradually, if that is what they want.
For parents of babies and toddlers who choose to work outside the home, the Government should be guaranteeing a high-quality alternative to full-time parental care. The first choice of non-parental care should be a quality childminder in the child's home or the childminder's home and the second choice should be a quality creche.
A childminder is preferable because, in a small, intimate setting, the interaction between adult and child is usually of a better quality, she says. It's not just about feeding and cleaning. A baby needs a complex interaction, and without it the child may fail to develop certain skills. Such a child may not look you in the eye or respond when you are trying to communicate.
Relatives, paid or unpaid, can be the next best thing to mother, but not if they cannot provide responsive interaction. If the TV is on in the background and the child is left without positive interaction, the child can lose the ability to concentrate and become over-stimulated, thereby impeding the development of learning skills. A child, even a baby, would be better off with a good childminder or in a creche than with a distracted relative.
Heino Schonfeld, director of the Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education, in Drumcondra, Dublin, and architect of the Government- commissioned report, A National Framework for Quality in Early Childhood Education (NQF)
What children need: A parent should be paid to spend the first year of a child's life at home. High-quality standards of early childhood education should be the norm in all daycare settings, including childminders' homes. All three year-olds should receive early childhood education.
We may need propaganda to help women feel esteemed in their roles as mothers, suggests Schonfeld. It would be less expensive for the State to pay one parent to care for a child in the home full-time for the first year than to provide that same quality of service in another setting.
Working parents need to be allowed to spend less time in the workplace and commuting, and more with their children. Even with excellent daycare, children should be in it no longer than 40 hours per week. If a child is in daycare from 7am until 7pm, what quality of parental interaction can there be? In that situation, a child is being reared by non-parental carers.
The NQF will provide national standards for all settings where children aged up to six years are present as learners, including full daycare, childminding, infant classes in primary schools, and playgroups. The standards will cover all aspects of provision (environment, programme and activities, equipment and staffing). Because the role of the adult in providing high-quality early childhood experiences is fundamental, there will be development of all those working with young children. All childcare settings will be assessed and a national award system will be introduced.
Geraldine French and Patricia Murphy, experts on early childhood and joint authors of Once in a Lifetime, a guide for those people working with children aged three and under
What children need: All the research on attachment has shown that for a baby to establish trusting relationships, the baby needs one-to-one parental care for the first year and this should be paid. There needs to be huge investment in creches to improve quality. Creches and childminders should centre on children's needs rather than the routines and needs of the service. Because the bonding and interaction between the child and the carer are so important, there should be better education for childcare workers and in the long-term their pay should be on a par with primary school teachers to ensure good quality.
Anne Conroy, national manager, National Children's Resource Centre, Barnardos
What children need: Quality after-school care appropriate to the stages of development of the children, provided by trained staff in purpose-built facilities, not in classrooms. Children as young as nine years old are going home from school to empty houses and spending the after-school hours unsupervised while waiting for parents to come home from work, according to calls received at Barnardos. Throughout the State, there are only 6,500 after-school care places and most of these are inappropriate for 10- to 14- year-olds, who do not want to be in a creche environment with child-sized furniture and toys on the floor. There are no standards for paid after-school care and no inspections, putting children at risk. Many children are in informal, ad-hoc arrangements with neighbours, relatives and friends. Children in this age group need someone to talk to who is interested in them and cares about them. They need a place to do their homework, get something to eat and just relax with friends.
Barnardos is currently developing a Fetac (Further Education and Training Awards Council) training scheme for after-school care workers in cooperation with Ippa the Early Childhood Organisation, the National Children's Nurseries Association (NCNA) and the Border Counties Childcare Network. The Department of Justice and Law Reform has published a report by a working group of the National Childcare Co-ordinating Committee, School Age Childcare in Ireland, which recommends the use of school premises, where appropriate, as a location to develop a quality school-age childcare service. It also lays down guidelines for the delivery of a high-quality school-age childcare service. Department funding is available to enable county childcare committees to work with local schools to develop services.
Dr Penelope Leach, well-known childcare guru and author of Your Baby and Child
What children need: quality one-to-one attention. Leach created media controversy when she prematurely disclosed aspects of the Families, Children and Childcare study being conducted by herself and three colleagues at the University of London and Oxford University. She has since dissociated herself from her remarks on the grounds that the research is still being analysed and is thus far inconclusive.
Leach's sneak preview revealed the preliminary finding that children fare best with full-time care in the home by a parent. The second-best option, according to the study, is a childminder or nanny, the third-best option is a creche, and the fourth-best option is relatives and friends.
However, Leach and her colleagues have since warned that mothers are not always best-placed to give high-quality care to their children. Children of mothers who were depressed or had other priorities did better with childminders or in creches.
The study followed 1,200 middle-class children from birth until age four. Dr Carol Vincent, one of the study researchers, states that, income apart, work was found to be very important to women in social relationships and in establishing independence from their children. Some felt theywere better parents if working outside the home.
Irish Childcare Policy Network (ICPN), formed last year to speak with one voice when informing Government of the needs of children. The network includes childcare experts and representatives from organisations such as the National Forum for Family Resource Centres, county childcare committees, the National Children's Nurseries Association, Ippa the Early Childhood Organisation, Forbairt Naíonraí Teo, Irish Rural Link, Childcare Bureau, National Women's Council of Ireland, Childminding Ireland, Barnardos, the Children's Rights Alliance, Lifestart, Border Counties Childcare Network, National Childminding Advisory Officers Forum, One Parent Exchange and Network, Katharine Howard Foundation and the Centre for Social and Educational Research (Dublin Institute of Technology)
What children need: All children deserve early childhood care and education of the highest standard and this will cost Government 1.5 per cent of GDP, which amounts to about €1.2 billion annually, about one-fortieth of the current budget and a little over half of the excess €2 billion in giveaways announced by the Department of Finance last week.
The ICPN believes that babies under one year of age are best cared for by their parents in the home, due to the crucial importance of bonding and interaction in brain formation. The Government should increase paid maternity leave to 26 weeks and offer an additional 26 weeks' paid parental leave, to be used by either parent. New mothers tend to be isolated and anxious, so they need support in the home through a visiting scheme, as well as through community programmes that promote children's health, well-being, learning and development. Parents of under-threes should be taught how to enhance their children's development through the way they interact.
After the first year, if both parents (or the solo parent) return to work, the one-year-old should be offered State-subsidised childcare services, whether in a creche or with a childminder. Subsidies should go directly to the services, rather than to parents, so that the State can coordinate and regulate services to ensure that they are of the highest quality. All creches, childminders and childcare workers in all settings should be specially trained and equipped and subject to national quality standards. State subsidy should be substantial enough to improve the quality of the services while also bringing down the cost to the parent by 50 per cent.
At the age of three, children should be offered free places in morning early-education programmes, which would be continued the following year in junior infants' classes in national school.
After-school care (also known as out-of-school care) would be subsidised to make it affordable, so that parents working a full day would feel confident that their children were well cared for up to age 14.
- in conversation with Kate Holmquist