Supporting Parental Involvement in Children's Early Learning: Lessons from Community Childcare Centres in Dublin's Docklands

Abstract

Recently in Ireland attention has been placed on the importance of parental involvement in early childhood care and education settings as seen in the Síolta Quality Standards and Aistear Curriculum Framework. Yet there is little Irish empirical evidence on parental involvement in childcare settings; on the involvement models being used, or on the benefits and limitations of efforts to involve parents. This paper reports on research in five Dublin Docklands community childcare centres where practitioners had been trained in the Pen Green Parental Involvement in Children's Early Learning programme (PICL). The research aimed to understand how practitioners were able to implement new parental involvement techniques as a result of their training, how the training impacted on centres' understandings of, and approach to, parental involvement; and barriers and facilitators to the implementation of a parental involvement model from a different cultural context in community childcare settings in Dublin. A participatory research strategy involved a stakeholder reference group; documentary analysis; interviews; and focus groups conducted with childcare practitioners, and with parents. Their involvement in PICL has benefited childcare workers in a variety of ways that include: improved image as professional childcare practitioners— (they are not just “babysitters”), the validation of existing practices, the introduction of new techniques and the confidence to communicate with parents. A number of structural issues impede practitioners' efforts to involve parents in their children's early learning. These include childcare regulations, short-term staffing, police clearance, resources, and dependence upon Community Employment Scheme staff. Involving parents in their children's early learning may also be constrained by attitudes about the role of child-minders and childcare centres. While there has been considerable practice change, there is still some distance to go in the Docklands childcare centres to develop the partnerships between practitioners and parents envisaged in the PICL framework. Consistent work is required to change parental values and attitudes about the role of the childcare practitioner, and to embed the idea of parents as partners in early education amongst both practitioners and parents.

Keywords:

• Childcare Training
• Evaluation
• Parental Involvement
• Pen Green
• Dublin Docklands

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the members of the Research Reference Group for their participation in the research. They are also grateful to the individual staff of each childcare centre, parents and children who gave of their time to help inform this study. The authors wish to acknowledge the research assistance provided by Ms Eimear Boyd and Ms Gillian Larkin, Research Interns at the Children's Research Centre, Trinity College Dublin and the support of the ELI programme team at the National College of Ireland. The research was funded by Pobal Dormant Account Funds—Flagship Projects. The views expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the National College of Ireland or of the funding body. We are grateful for the advice of two anonymous reviewers whose views have helped to strengthen this paper.

Notes

1. Community childcare services in the Republic of Ireland eligible for statutory funding are community-based not-for-profit services that usually provide sessional care of at least 3.5 hours per day, five days per week, 46 weeks per year, with state-subsidised fees for disadvantaged families. They are often governed by a local committee.

2. Government-endorsed Síolta and Aistear frameworks came into operation post PICL training and implementation. Since the roll-out of Síolta and Aistear, the ELI has been working with centres to align PICL with these frameworks.

3. Pen Green uses the term “nursery”. Throughout this paper we refer to childcare settings, which is the terminology commonly used in Ireland.