Enhancing Quality in Family Day Care (Childminding)
Project Overview
‘Enhancing Quality in Family Day Care (Childminding)’ is a peer learning project, which is funded by Erasmus+.
During the project, participants from three countries – Ireland, Belgium and Denmark explored Family Day Care (Childminding) – the legislation, policies, governance, quality management, professionalisation of staff, workforce development, recruitment, and retention strategies in the three countries.
The aim is to influence target groups, stakeholders, and policy makers in order to strengthen and enhance quality in Family Day Care (Childminding).
Project Objectives
The objectives of the project are to:
1. Identify and explore effective approaches to developing competent multi-level systems in FDC governance and quality management, enabling professionalisation and workforce development, and generating FDC recruitment and retention strategies, to strengthen FDC.
2. Share the learning with target groups and stakeholders responsible for multi-level policymaking and VET infrastructures, to influence policy objectives and actions.
3. Increase the capacity of partner organisations to advocate for effective policies and practices that enable high-quality FDC systems and services strategies and guidelines from municipalities remain inadequate to accommodate children and families from non-standard backgrounds – exclusion is widespread.
Results
Full details about this project, as well as a report and video summary, are available on the project website: https://projects.au.dk/qualfdc.
Learning, Teaching and Training Activities (LTTA)
Project results were achieved through three Learning, Teaching and Training Activities (LTTA), which took place in each of the participating countries.
LTTA 1
LTTA 2
During LTTA 2 in Denmark in June 2023, our team explored Danish policies and legislation in Childminding (FDC), education and recruitment of staff, research in the area and educational quality in everyday practices. This knowledge was added to that from LTTA 1 (above) to further explore inspiring and effective policies and implementation in Childminding (FDC) governance and management systems, workforce professionalisation and development, and recruitment and retention in Ireland. You can read about the team’s experience of Danish Childminding (FDC) in this Scéalta blog post.
LTTA 3
In October 2023, our Flemish and Danish partners joined us in Ireland for LTTA 3. This LTTA, led by Early Childhood Ireland, focussed on Childminding (FDC) recruitment and retention. LTTA 3 included presentations on the Irish Early Years sector from representatives from the Department of Education, Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the Scottish Childminding Association, Quality and Qualifications Ireland, and others important Early Years agencies.
Further Information
Contact Persons
Liz Kerrins
Director of Research
Early Childhood Ireland
lkerrins@earlychildhoodireland.ie
Aoife Horgan
Research Support Officer
Early Childhood Ireland
ahorgan@earlychildhoodireland.ie
Project links:
