Which of the following was identified as the most important factor in determining quality childcare.

  Center-based programs that have positive impacts on young children’s development provide some combination of the following features:

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• Through the eyes of children
• Through the eyes of parents
• Overall elements of quality
• Unregulated child care
• Guidelines for assessing quality in unregulated child care
• Child care in your own home: Terms of employment
• Training in early childhood education
• Wages and working conditions
• Staff-child ratios and group size
• Educational elements

• · highly-skilled staff,
• · small class sizes and high adult-to-child ratios,
• · a language-rich environment,
• · age-appropriate curricula and stimulating materials in a safe physical setting,
• · warm, responsive interactions between staff and children

— A science-based framework for early childhood policy, 2007.

This summary comes from a research report from the Center for the Developing Child at Harvard University. At the same time, personal ideas about quality child care can vary depending on values, beliefs and cultural or social context and also on who is making the judgment.

Through the eyes of children

For children, a high-quality program may mean feeling accepted for who they are no matter what their ability or culture. It means having friends and responsive adults, being emotionally and physically comfortable and the possibility of having a variety of fun, interesting and engaging activities.

Through the eyes of parents

For most parents, quality child care safeguards a child’s health and safety; the child is happy, and the program is conveniently located and affordable.

For many parents, quality child care is key to balancing work and family, so that parents have peace of mind while they are at work.

Other parents may define a high quality program as incorporating tangible school readiness activities, such as pre- or early reading or learning to count, or highlighting learning social skills such as cooperation. Or they may define a quality environment as one in which their families’ culture and their child’s abilities are respected.

Or parents may define high quality child care as an environment in which their child is happy, makes friends, has interesting and positive experiences, and learns about a wide variety of things. 

Or… all of the above…and more.

Overall elements of quality

While there is no single definition of quality in child care, there are some overall elements of child care that are identified as critical to the well-being of children. These include:

• Health, safety and good hygiene
• Good nutrition
• A well-maintained environment set up for children
• An adequate number of staff who are sensitive and responsive to children
• Opportunities for active play—especially outdoors
• Opportunities for quiet play and rest
• Opportunities for developing motor, social, language and cognitive skills through play
• Positive interactions with adults
• Practices that support positive interaction amongst children
• Facilitation of emotional growth
• Participation of, support for and communication with parents
• Respect for diversity and difference, gender equality and inclusion of children with disabilities

As well, high quality child care is generally understood to have

• Broad learning and development goals for children, going beyond narrow academic aims like early literacy and numeracy to social, emotional, cultural, artistic and physical goals
• An approach that “lets children be children”, which means learning through play and experiencing a wide range of artistic, cultural, cognitive, social and physical activities.

Unregulated child care

Many families with parents in the labour force and no close family members who can provide child care use an unregulated arrangement, either in a family child care home (a caregiver’s home) or in the child’s own home. This means parents have sole responsibility for assessing the quality of the child care, managing the relationship with the care provider and are on their own in finding a new provider if the arrangement breaks down or ceases.

Guidelines for assessing quality in unregulated child care

When looking for an unregulated child care arrangement it’s advisable to become well informed about health and safety and the elements of high quality child care.

One way to start is to get to know your province or territory’s requirements for regulated family child care as a starting point and a point of comparison in such areas as

• Health and safety
• Programming
• Maximum numbers of children by age
• Physical space
• Caregiver training and support

This approach can provide some basic guidelines for assessing unregulated family child care, since there is no public oversight or monitoring, no support system and no training requirements.

You may want to consider a written contract with an unregulated family child care provider. A contract or agreement should include such things as payment amount and schedule, benefits, hours, sick days and holidays, cancellation and termination of care, etc. A sample contract for the Live-In Caregiver Program (below) may be useful for designing this contract.

Child care in your own home: Terms of employment

When the child care is in your own home, you will need to negotiate the terms of employment with the caregiver.

In the case of in-child’s-home care provided by a caregiver who is part of Immigration Canada’s Live-In Caregiver Program, there must be a written contract between the employer (the parent) and the employee (the caregiver). It must include: job duties, hours of work, wages, holiday and sick leave entitlements and termination and resignation terms. A number of the elements included in this program’s sample contract may be useful for families using other varieties of in-child’s-home child care.

Research studies have looked at key factors that contribute to quality in early childhood programs. These include regulation, training in early childhood education, wages and working conditions, staff-child ratios and group size, educational elements and auspice (who owns the program).

Regulation

Meeting the regulations is an important basis for quality but is considered to be a minimum in all provinces/territories. High quality centres…

• Will have their own policies and procedures addressing the key factors of quality. For example, good quality centres will have a clear philosophy and /or pedagogical approach and specific program plans.
• Go above and beyond minimum standards. For example, they may increase the number of staff, hire staff with more early childhood training than the minimum required, provide professional development, ensure adequate wages and/or benefits to staff, and provide especially nutritious food.
• May incorporate elements into the program that are not required. For example, a high quality program will encourage community involvement, include children with special needs, incorporate toys and materials from diverse cultural backgrounds, spend a good deal of time exploring outdoor environments in active play or offer a developmentally appropriate music or arts program.

Regulation has an impact on quality, although it does not guarantee quality. Regulation ensures—at minimum—public oversight and that certain requirements are in place.

Generally, American research shows the more stringent the requirements, the higher the quality—and vice versa. This makes sense—a province that requires a college diploma in early childhood education for 2/3 of staff will likely have more staff with this credential than one that requires only one staff in a centre to have a diploma.

Regulation does not necessarily ensure all basic health and safety (for example, supervision, hygiene, food quality and food handling). That’s because –as the research shows—other characteristics such as staff training in early childhood education, ratios, and auspice (who owns the program) also make a contribution to determining the elements of basic health and safety in regulated settings.   

Training in early childhood education

Staff training in early childhood education is one of the most important predictors of quality in child care. Research shows that there is a strong relationship between high quality and staff with postsecondary training in early childhood education (college or university).  

Training is so important that UNICEF has a minimum benchmark that says almost all of the people (at least 80%) “working regularly with young children, including home-based caregivers” should have at least initial early childhood training before they begin to provide early childhood education and care.

Wages and working conditions

It stands to reason that higher wages and good working conditions attract and retain better educated staff, promote higher morale, and result in lower turnover—all factors at the heart of high-quality child care. At least one study show that the wages of early childhood education staff is the best single predictor of quality.

Staff-child ratios and group size

Small group sizes and high staff-child ratios also contribute to higher quality in child care; the age group determines what is considered an “adequate” size and ratio.

Provincial/territorial regulations in Canada specify ratios that—based on the research—are generally considered to be adequate, although some provinces/territories do not regulate group size, which also has an impact.

There is also evidence that ratios and training are interrelated—having lots of staff with no post-secondary early childhood training is no substitute for having well-trained educators.    

Educational elements

A high-quality child care program has a solid pedagogical approach and curriculum framework. Look for a program with:

• A clear, descriptive educational philosophy
• A short general outline setting out how the variety of goals for children will be achieved

In a high-quality program, staff have the knowledge to create the program to fit the specific situation within the overarching philosophy, goals and approach. An “off the shelf”, pre-packaged early childhood curriculum does not usually have this type of flexibility.  

Auspice

Who owns the child care program (auspice) may be an important indicator of quality. Research shows that public and non-profit child care is significantly more likely to be better quality than for-profit child care, even when public funding is the same.

This doesn’t mean all non-profit child care programs are high quality and those set up as businesses are all poor quality. But research shows that auspice has a clear link with factors such as wages, working conditions, training, staff turnover, staff morale, staff/child ratios and group size. This means auspice plays a key role in determining whether program quality will be higher or lower.