FAMILY DAY CARE ASSOCIATION QUEENSLAND SETTING THE FOUNDATION FOR QUALITY PRACTICE IN FAMILY DAY CARE Quality practice starts with an effective educator recruitment and induction process. By Cathy Cahill 20 IN THE LOOP
Over the last year the family day care industry has experienced a great deal of uncertainty and change. This has led us to challenge our old thinking around what a coordination unit should look like. We have found there to be a strong correlation and connection between family day care educators being highly skilled and having constant and effective support from their coordination unit. This support can be in many forms but it has to start with a comprehensive educator recruitment and induction process. This gives educators the best possible foundations which lead to the best outcomes for children. As an organisation the Family Day Care Association Queensland has recently researched and created a recruitment and induction process to assist coordination units in the process of acquiring and maintaining high quality educators. We feel it’s more effective to focus on the importance of recruitment and induction processes to attract high quality educators, as opposed to the redundant thinking based on arbitrary educator numbers, in order to establish the future of family day care as a force in the education and care sector. Coordination units should start to focus on understanding adult learning principles in their role of ensuring quality outcomes to children in an educator’s home environment. By using these principles each coordination unit will gain a deeper understanding of best practice to help develop mentoring and support processes, which enables the learner to develop dispositions for learning. These dispositions for learning are developed when coordinators work with an educator as equal partners and each party recognises the skills, attributes and competencies they bring to any learning experience. PRINCIPLES FOR WORKING WITH ADULT LEARNERS Knowles work on ‘andragogy’ highlights 5 key learning principles for consideration when working with adult learners: 1. Self-concept: As a person matures their self-concept moves from one of being a dependent personality toward one of being a self-directed human being. 2. Experience: As a person matures they accumulate a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning. 3. Readiness to learn: As a person matures their readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of their social roles with families, children and coordinators. 4. Orientation to learning: As a person matures their time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application, and accordingly their orientation towards learning shifts from one of subjectcenteredness to one of problem centeredness – hence the precedency toward on-the-job learning. 5. Motivation to learn: As a person matures their motivation to learn increases to an internal process – driven by their own motivation to learn (Knowles 1984: 12 in Smith, M 2002). These principles align well with that of the more well-known child learning principles. The role of the coordinator, once a person is deemed appropriate for the role of the educator, is not a ‘teaching role’ but rather a mentoring and support role. Coordinators need to walk alongside educators, supporting their capacity to build competency through professional development planning, resourcing and engaging in problemsolving processes. This happens through a range of strategies, while face-to-face home visits are a key component of building an understanding of the educator’s practices. This cannot be seen as the only or ‘best’ way to undertake this mentoring and support role. SO, WHAT ARE SOME WAYS SERVICES CAN AND DO SUPPORT EDUCATORS? Using an in-depth recruitment and induction process ensures the coordination unit is selecting educators that support the ethos and philosophy of the service, have the suitable attributes, skills and qualifications. This process builds an educator profile which contains knowledge about the educator, her/his family, the education and care environment and whether the educators may need further professional development. The development of a professional improvement plan requires a collaborative process where both the educator and coordinator identify the current strengths and areas of support needed. Family day care educators are responsible for the all the day to day management of their home-based service. This includes: • making decisions about the learning environment provided, • managing wellbeing and safety, • implementing service policy and procedures, and • enrolment of families in the educator’s environment. They are also required to hold or be studying towards a Certificate III qualification. The significant responsibilities listed above demonstrate the importance of a focus on quality recruitment and induction processes to attract applicants with the best skills and attributes. Educators also need to be supported in a system with coordinators who are skilled and qualified in andragogy. Every educator will play a significant role in the lives of the children in their care; this is why we need to get it right from the start. Family Day Care provides an environment for skilful, selfmanaged adults to demonstrate quality outcomes for children. This alone demonstrates the impact of a strong intentional recruitment and andragogy approach by coordination unit staff in supporting and recruiting educators. REFERENCES: Smith, M. K. (2002) ‘Malcolm Knowles, informal adult education, self-direction and anadragogy’. WORKFORCE.ORG.AU 21
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