A
report on the recent Annual Conference of
the National Child Minding Association Conference
Torquay
was the sunniest place in the United Kingdom when the NCMA was meeting
there for their annual bash. The Mayor and Mayoress provided a warm
welcome and the Association offered a friendly ambience - and some
heated debate too. As usual there was a big crowd (though not quite
as many as last year) and a wide variety of topics in the sessions
(though not quite so full a programme as in some years). There were
also plenty of trade stands and the customary riotous dinner; one
could not call it formal, though delegates did dress up - this year
in fancy hats of all shapes and sizes. In summary, a good time was
had by all.
Baroness
Cathy Ashton spoke, as she had done at the last NCMA Conference.
On that occasion she had taken away six issues (permitted number
of children, smacking, smoking etc.) raised by NCMA members for
action or further consideration, and she was proud to announce that
she had dealt with all six. She described herself as “a listening
Minister”, and to judge by the applause she received, even
when expressing disagreement, it was a well-earned title.
She
described a number of current Government initiatives :
-
a pilot scheme working with 109 teenage parents
- the organisation of “taster sessions” for non-working
parents to try out childcare arrangements which might free them to
work
- pathfinder areas where local authorities were funding “buddies”,
existing childminders with the task of helping and encouraging new
applicants through initial registration and setting-up processes
- the use of children’s centres as bases for childminder networks
- 123 approved to date, covering 80,000 places for children
- Sustainability Grants, whose criteria had been eased to encourage
a higher take- up.
An
interesting feature of her talk was that, at a time when issues such
as the creation of Foundation Hospitals were tearing the Labour Party
apart, the initiatives which she was describing would have met with
the approval of Old Labour as much as the New.
She pointed out that at present, the research all showed that a child’s
background, rather than its ability, affected its attainments, and
the Government wanted to counter that bias by giving children with
poorer backgrounds better opportunities.
Cathy Ashton pointed out that childminders had a major role to play
in giving children such opportunities. She argued for partnerships
between the Government and other organisations as vital, and she praised
the NCMA for its influence in policy-making.
As a good listening Minister, she took questions, and as she had
done last year, she took away some knotty problems to consider :
- the lack of business for some childminders, for lack of a level
playing field
- dissatisfaction with the Ofsted grading system of good, satisfactory
and unsatisfactory (not her responsibility)
- confusion over Tax Credits
- problems of planning and registration, and
- the postcode differences concerning the availability of the Sustainability
Grant.
Hopefully the NCMA will be able to look forward to checking out
her achievements at next year’s conference.
The Building Bricks of Learning
Hannah
Boutrop of the Lego Institute gave a bravura performance which entertained
and enthralled the audience while she explained about the way children
learnt, neatly slipping in Lego’s concern to help children learn.
Lego was first set up as a toy company in 1932, and the founder’s
grandson is the current Chairman. The Institute takes an interest
in educational research.
Hannah spoke of the parts of the brain and their different functions.
She claimed that crocodiles’ brains consisted only of a brain
stem, the most primitive part of the brain, which was concerned only
with basic needs such as eating and survival. This would explain why
people do not have trained crocodiles as pets, and is worth knowing
in case the question arises in pub quizzes.
She moved on to the limbic system and the neocortex which respectively
control the emotions and higher thought processes. She said that learning
encouraged the brain to grow, in general from about 600 grams to 1200
or 1300 grams. The brains of unstimulated people, such as the children
in the Romanian orphanages in Ceausescu’s day, did not grow.
It was a case of use it or lose it. To be successful, children needed
to grow fat brains.
Hannah saw curiosity as the driver to brain growth. Children had a
steep learning curve in their first six years, but this slowed down
while they were at school, picking up again with the stimulation of
work demands. She quoted a conversation, “What did you learn
as a child?” “Not much. School took up most of my time,”
and she argued for children to be stimulated and challenged to be
creative, rather than being instructed. If bored, children would -
and should - move to a new activity. “Intelligence is not a
question of the amount of knowledge we have, but of how we act when
we don’t know what to do”, she concluded.
Managing Behaviour Positively
Michael Dukes, a psychologist from Bradford, gave an interesting and
sound talk about ways of encouraging good behaviour in children. Research
had shown that young people with disruptive or delinquent behaviour
patterns had often started by being naughty and cheeky as youngsters.
If they came to childminders without having learnt how to behave socially,
he saw it as the role of childminders to teach them (subject, of course,
to consultation with the parents and an acknowledgement that families
behave in different ways).
As
role models, childminders should never :
-
hit children
- use bad language
- use aggressive language
- behave anti-socially or aggressively in front of children
- use sarcasm
- give mixed messages.
They should :
- approve of good behaviour
- reinforce good behaviour positively
- help children to make better choices in their behaviour
- speak authoritatively as adults
- have only four or five clear house rules and teach them explicitly
- reward good behaviour
- give sanctions for bad behaviour (shades of The Water Babies?)
- reward children for effort rather than achievement
- teach children how to listen
- talk quietly and teach children how to be quiet.
In dealing with bad behaviour, Michael Dukes advocated giving “assertive
responses”. This entailed :
- acknowledging that one had heard what was said
- stating one’s reaction to what had been said
- stating what outcome one would have preferred, and
- not being deflected.
He said that, unless people - children or adults - were overtly aggressive
and uncontrolled, most people would only be able to divert from a
resolute stance six times, and would then cave in, as “their
argument would have lost its oxygen”.
He advocated “praise postcards” in which teachers would
encourage parents to make time to discuss with their child when they
had done something good, and suggested that sanctions should be minimal
- enough to make the point without having unforeseen consequences
which would undermine their effectiveness. Praise and penalties should
never be traded off.
Positive recognition of good behaviour :
- encouraged good behaviour
- created a positive atmosphere
- increased self-esteem
- explained what was expected
- reduced problem behaviour
- helped develop positive relationships.
All children needed to be successful, but privileges needed to be
earned. Constant criticism made people give up. Research by Herbert
Kohl had shown that at least three positive statements had to be made
per critical comment if children were to accept the criticism and
learn from it.
Michael Duke had been a teacher for many years before moving into
psychology, and he now specialises in anti-bullying strategies, stress
management and behaviour management. His contribution was all good
stuff, and well received.
International Models
The final plenary session, given by a Swedish researcher called Malene
Karlsson, looked at the various titles used throughout the world for
childminders and their equivalents. Understandably, the variations
reflected the varying cultures of the countries, but it was particularly
important at this Conference, as the NCMA had been holding an internal
debate about the need for a term to replace childminder.
Terms used for childminding were :
- family day care : the most widely used term, for example in
Australia and some parts of North America
- family child care : in some parts of the United States
- home-based child care : Canada
- dagpleje (daycare) : Denmark, where the term is not used for
other client groups
- familjedaghem (family day home) : Sweden
- creche familiale (family creche) : France
- familiebarnehage (family kindergarten) : Norway
Terms
for a childminder were in some cases those used colloquially and in
some cases legal or bureaucratic language :
-
carer
- provider
- care giver : Australia
- family care giver : New Zealand
- family day care educator : New Zealand
- tagesmutter (day mother) : Germany
- dagmamme (day mum) : Sweden
- dagplejermor (day care mother) : Denmark
- dagplejer (day carer) : Denmark
- nourrice (wet nurse) : France
- ama (loving) : Portugal
- miguella (Little friend) : Spain
- dagbarnvarhre (day child carer) : Sweden
- familiebarnehagassistant (family kindergarten assistant) : Norway
- tagepflegeperson (day care person) : Germany
- orpvanggezin (Receiving parent) : Holland
- mother-teacher : a New York organisation.
Six
elements seemed to emerge :
- this type of service is offered to children in the worker’s
home
- it is usually offered as a day service
- it is in some senses a replacement for family care, and needs
to reflect the values
and attitudes of a family
- it offers personal and social care
- it provides education and development
- it provides protection - or minding.
Could a name cover all these points? or which would be of importance
to NCMA members in the context of England and Wales? Malene Karlsson
pointed out that, to be successful, a name needed to be short, or
it would be abbreviated, or initials would be used. If a new name
were to be adopted, it would need to be better than the one it was
replacing. It was also necessary to decide what the purpose of the
name was - as a title by which workers wanted to be known among themselves?
as a name for other people to use? or to distinguish the work from
other types of occupation? For example, what term would a child use
to describe his / her childminder?
The address led to some keen debate, as the Annual General Meeting
next day was to discuss the very topic. Most people argued for improving
the image of childminding, rather than creating a new title. Changing
the name would entail expense, divert people from other tasks, and
detract from work undertaken to give credibility to the current name.
After all, said one delegate, “Look what happened to Insignia
(sic)”. Quite.
The Strengths of the Democratic
Process
The AGM spent a lot of its time on the Annual Report, in which Lynn
Daley, the Chair, spoke of a string of successes for the NCMA (reflected
in a growth in the budget from £8.5 million to £11 million),
and on other business, but it really warmed up with the big name change
debate. To be precise, the motion and its amendments spoke only of
putting pressure on the Government to use another term for childminder
in law, and professional child carer and one or two other options
were considered.
It was clear from the debate and the voting that almost all the delegates
had decided that it would be a waste of time changing the name, and
that a public relations exercise was needed to establish the profession’s
credibility, perhaps by emphasising that they were registered childminders.
However, the postal vote reflected widespread concern among members
about the image of the profession, and the postal ballots outweighed
the votes of those present.
This caused a degree of consternation, but it was obviously an example
of the democratic process at work. Following a counterbalancing emergency
motion which delegates passed, untrammelled by postal votes, the Executive
was given a slightly mixed message to take away and work on.
Next
year’s AGM in Scarborough should sort everything out.
