The construction of child-caregiver relationship in childcare centre: adaptation of Parent Attachment Diary for professional caregivers

ABSTRACT

From their origins, Italian early childhood services paid attention to the transition from family to childcare centre, explicitly referring to attachment theory. In the present study, the Parent Attachment Diary was adapted and applied within a childcare centre context to examine the development of infants’ relationship with their professional caregivers during the earliest months of attendance. The research focuses on two studies, using the adapted version of PAD, the Professional Caregiver Attachment Diary (PCAD). The two studies involved a total of 87 professional caregivers and 222 infants aged between 4 and 35 months (M = 16 months). After both 2 and 4 months after starting the childcare centre, children show a significant decrease of Avoidant and Resistant attachment behaviours, but Secure behaviours do not increase over time. However, behaviours coded as Non Distressed significantly increase, which could indicate children feel more secure in the new setting of care over time. These results demonstrate the utility of the PCAD to describe the process of adaptation in the new context.

KEYWORDS:

• Childcare centre
• inserimento (settling-in phase)
• Parent Attachment Diary (PAD)
• Professional Caregiver Attachment Diary (PCAD)
• multiple attachments

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Mary Dozier who kindly made the original instrument available. The training and research work was conducted thanks to the agreement with the cooperative Or.S.A. (Italy). We thank the educators who participated with their observations and their availability, the parents who authorized the use of the observations, and the students who collaborated in the organization of the Data Base. Finally, we thank all the children who have lived the settling-in experience.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID

Alessia Macagno http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7092-2922

Paola Molina http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7037-0037

Notes

1 The 1944 Law (Piano Quinquennale per l’istituzione di asili-nido comunali con il concorso dello stato) establishes public nurseries for the first time, managed by the municipalities with the contribution of the State.