Birth to three matters - Communities and Local Government

clean, safe and uncluttered and havingappropriate materials for play andinteraction for the age-group. What isspecial about this research is its inclusion,for the first time in such a study, ofinformal care by other family members(fathers, grandparents, nannies). Theresearchers state that it was the inclusionof this form of care which increased thelevels of their results related to sensitivityand stimulation.Another American in-depth,observationalstudy (Galinsky et al 1994),which focusedsolely on children in home-based care(with a childminder or member of theirown family), issued a warning that in theUSA, children from low income familieswere more likely to be in care which gavecause for concern. They found that parentschoose providers who are similar tothemselves in income and ethnicity. Theseresearchers reiterated results like those ofthe NICHD study outlined above – thatcarers need to be ‘committed, caring, opento learning, and purposeful about theimportant work of being a family childcare provider.’ (Galinsky et al 1994: 96). Asa result they recommended that publicbodies should not push reluctant workersinto becoming child carers; that thereshould be investments in advocacy andeducation about ECEC; that governmentand businesses should fund child caretraining initiatives and help families payfor childcare; that family child careproviders should be entitled to access toresources enabling them to providestimulating learning experiences; thereshould be associations to offer social andtechnical support to family carers atnational and local levels; that anyregulatory system should be providerfriendlyand inspection visits random androtating. One important finding from thisextensive study was the fact that thechildren’s mothers, when interviewed infocus groups, expressed their mostessential requirements of a practitioner tobe exactly those listed by the NICHD team– warmth, attention to the child,cleanliness and communication (with boththe child and themselves). Sadly, this studyfound only 50 per cent of the children tobe securely attached to their child careproviders but they were no more likely tobe securely attached to a carer who was arelative than a non-relative. This figure of50 per cent tallies with that found byHowes and Hamilton’s (1993) study ofchildren in group settings. Galinsky et al(1994) concluded that the best way ofensuring children become attached totheir carers (seen as an essentialpre-requisite of effective provision; seealso the section on resilience in chapter 1and discussion in chapter 3), is by drawinginto ECEC only those workers who want tolearn more about being a care-giver, areintentional in their approaches and aboveall,are committed.In a longitudinal study of 354 parents andtheir firstborn infants, Laucht et al (1994)examined the relationship betweenchildren’s development and parentalpsychopathology (mental illness). Theycompared the social-emotional and120 EDUCATION ANDSKILLS B I RT H T O T H R E E M AT T E R S