The mechanism of parent choice is sometimes viewed as a way of improving the quality of child care centres. This study looks at whether parent choice is constrained by family variables such as socio-economic status, education and family income and to what extent parents do select quality. The sample for the present study included 100 child care centres catering for under two year old children from around New Zealand. The quality of each centre was assessed using two measures, a checklist (the Abbott-Shim Assessment Profile) and an interval observational procedure focusing on child-staff interactions (the Howes/Melhuish Observational Schedule). Two under two year-olds from each centre were observed for 100 minutes and their parents filled in a questionnaire about their satisfaction with the child care centre. The study showed modest correlations (-.18 to .27) between socio-economic status, education and family income and the Abbott-Shim Assessment Profile but none with observations of child/staff interactions. Eighty-six per cent of parents in the study said that this centre was their first choice and ratings of quality were highly positive. Yet for most measures there were zero correlations between research-based measures of quality and parent satisfaction. Qualitative data showed that there was some overlap between the criteria which parents mentioned as the 'best' or 'worst' things and criteria incorporated into research methods. Parents, however, were concerned about cost, location and convenience which were not part of the research measures. Comments on centres which were of high quality and low quality made by parents and early childhood trained researchers were compared.Parents were much more positive and uncritical in their comments than researchers. It was concluded that many parents make passive choices of centres rather than actively choosing between alternatives and that many do not have knowledge © Trentham Books 1996 5 Downloaded by [New York University] at 21:53 18 February 2015 SHANEE J. BARRACLOUGH AND ANNE B. SMITH or awareness of specific aspects of quality to look for. It was concluded that parent choice is not currently a viable means of controlling quality and that policy makers need to look to other mechanisms. Résumé Le mécanisme du choix des parents est quelquefois considéré comme un moyen d 'améliorer la qualité des centres d'accueil pour les enfants d'âge préscolaire. Cette étude s'attache a determiner si le choix des parents se trouve conditionné par des variables familiales telles que la catégorie socio-professionnelle, l'éducation et les revenus du menage et à évaluer la mesure dans laquelle les parents considèrent que la qualité du centre est un critère de sélection. Cette étude a été conduite sur la base d'un échantillon de 100 établissements répartis sur le territoire neo-zelandais et accueillant des enfants ages de moins de deux ans. La qualite de chaque etablissement a été établie sur la base de deux critères: une liste de controle (Abbott-Shim Assessmnent Profde-Profil d'appréci...
This paper examines the space between familiar and new storying of professional identity in the author's migration from counsellor/psychologist to lecturer/ researcher. Value is given to reflecting on the complexities and multiplicities which exist in this in-between space, particularly at points of difference and discomfort. Reflective practices of writing as inquiry and autoethnography are used to examine this migration of professional identity and are suggested as useful processes for undertaking socially responsive research. In this context, writing as inquiry and subsequent meaning-making/deconstruction leads me to places not yet known, and gives per(form)ance to the complex and multiple possibilities that open up in this process. The benefit of autoethnographic writing and meaning-making as a pre-cursor to participant-observation research is also discussed.
The present article reports foster carer perceptions of the long-term effectiveness of a carer-focussed training intervention -the Fostering Changes (FC) programme. Five foster carers who completed FC at a not-for-profit child and family agency in New Zealand were interviewed 13-15 months post-training about their experiences and perceptions of FC and its subsequent effectiveness. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) informed both data collection and analysis. Five superordinate themes were identified: (1) FC is perceived to be an effective training programme that provides sustained benefits; (2) foster carer training is crucially important; (3) the challenges of fostering continue, irrespective of training; (4) caregiver confidence gained from training wanes over time in the face of persistent challenges; (5) foster carers require ongoing therapeutic interventions and support because of their children's persistent behavioural and relational difficulties. The findings suggest that, while FC provides effective and relevant training, carers simultaneously require ongoing clinical services. K E Y W O R D S foster carer intervention, foster carer training, Fostering Changes programme, out-of-home care, placement support, treatment effectiveness This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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