2010
Barriers to Participation
The Experience of Disadvantaged Young
Children, their Families and Professionals in
Engaging with Early Childhood Services
Report to the NSW Department of Human Services
Children and Families Research Centre
0
Macquarie University
University 2010
| Children and Families
Research
Centre | Barriers
Participation Macquarie
Copyright
Institute
of Earlyto Childhood
Project Team
CHIEF INVESTIGATORS
Dr Rebekah Grace
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Children and Families Research Centre, Macquarie University
Professor Jennifer Bowes
Director of the Children and Families Research Centre
Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University
RESEARCH TEAM
Dr Michelle Trudgett
Lecturer, Warawara Indigenous Studies Unit, Macquarie University
Andrea McFarlane
Research Assistant, Children and Families Research Centre, Macquarie
University
Toby Honig
Research Assistant, Children and Families Research Centre, Macquarie
University
Enquiries should be directed to Dr Rebekah Grace. Rebekah is now employed as a Senior
Research Fellow in the Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity at the University of NSW.
Her contact details are as follows. Phone: (02) 9612 0764.
Email: [email protected]
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Acknowledgements
The chief investigators of this report would like to acknowledge and thank the NSW
Department of Community Services for their support of this research. Particular
thanks go to Peter Walsh, Johanna Watson and Eileen Ross.
We would also like to thank Macquarie University for contributing to the cost of this
research through the New Staff Grant scheme. The Bluesands Foundation, through
their generous donation to the Children and Families Research Centre, made it
possible for this research to be extended to a remote area of NSW.
In large part, the success of this research reflects the quality of the work invested by
outstanding Research Assistants. Dr Michelle Trudgett, an Indigenous woman
descended from the Wiradjuri nation in central-west NSW, was pivotal to the
engagement of Indigenous families and workers in this research. She played a key
role in the adaptation of materials for Indigenous families, in the interviewing of
Indigenous families and workers and building relationships with communities, as well
as in the analysis of this data. Michelle‟s commitment to the reciprocity of research
was no more evident than in an initiative she led in which, as a result of the
relationships we had built in Broken Hill, we co-ordinated a Christmas Toy Drive for
Indigenous children in remote areas of NSW. Andrea McFarlane made a significant
and valuable contribution to the recruitment and interviewing of families and workers.
She also assisted in the review of the literature, the analysis of qualitative data and
in the writing of the report. Her gentleness and strong organisational abilities were a
great asset to the team. Toby Honig brought a wonderful energy and sense of
humour to this research. He was a key team member in the recruitment and
interviewing of families and workers. In the early days of this research he was
pushed a long way out of his comfort zone in our attempts to recruit participants,
such as handing out flyers and fruit at a community fair. We thank him for his
courage and for approaching these tasks with a sense of fun. Thanks must also be
extended to Dr Jenny Barr who assisted with some of the qualitative analysis.
Most of all, our thanks is extended the participants in this research project. It was
with considerable trepidation that many of these families opened their homes and
lives to us. We thank them for their trust, for their candour and for their insights. We
would also like to thank the children who spoke with us. It can be scary to talk with
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adults you don‟t know, and we thank you for sharing your stories with us. There are
some little personalities we will never forget. Last but not least, we thank the early
childhood workers who made time in their very busy schedules to assist with the
recruitment of families and to talk with us. As in every research project, it is the
participants who form the heart and soul of a project and we hope we have captured
their collective voice in a way that does them justice.
Rebekah Grace and Jennifer Bowes
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Contents
Project Team ............................................................................................................. 1
Acknowledgements.................................................................................................. 2
Chapter 1: Introduction, Executive Summary and Recommendations ............... 6
Introduction ............................................................................................................. 6
Executive Summary ................................................................................................ 6
Findings .................................................................................................................. 7
Recommendations ................................................................................................ 11
Chapter 2: Review of the Literature ...................................................................... 14
Defining Disadvantage.......................................................................................... 14
Social distress indicators ...................................................................................... 15
Health indicators ................................................................................................... 16
Economic indicators.............................................................................................. 17
Education indicators ............................................................................................. 17
Equity and social inclusion .................................................................................... 22
Chapter 3: Research Approach ............................................................................. 39
An Ecocultural approach....................................................................................... 39
The application of Ecocultural theory to the current research project ................... 41
Applying the Ecocultural approach to research with children ................................ 44
Defining the concept of engagement .................................................................... 45
Chapter 4: Methods and Procedures .................................................................... 48
Target areas ......................................................................................................... 48
The Vinson Rating Scale ...................................................................................... 48
The target areas ................................................................................................... 49
Recruitment .......................................................................................................... 51
Participants ........................................................................................................... 52
Measures .............................................................................................................. 56
Procedure ............................................................................................................. 67
Analysis ................................................................................................................ 69
Chapter 5: Findings from the Family Interviews.................................................. 70
Attendance ........................................................................................................... 70
Engagement ......................................................................................................... 79
Barriers and Facilitators ........................................................................................ 84
Chapter 6: Findings from the Child Interviews .................................................... 91
What happens when you arrive at preschool? ...................................................... 91
Outside play .......................................................................................................... 94
Cleaning-up .......................................................................................................... 95
Art and Craft ......................................................................................................... 95
Feelings ................................................................................................................ 96
Connectedness ..................................................................................................... 98
Incongruence ...................................................................................................... 102
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Chapter 7: Findings from the Early Childhood Worker Focus Groups ........... 104
Supporting Families ............................................................................................ 104
Supporting Staff and Services ............................................................................ 118
Service quality .................................................................................................... 118
Maintaining morale and professionalism............................................................. 118
The importance of adequate funding to service quality....................................... 119
Administrative red tape ....................................................................................... 120
Integrated service provision ................................................................................ 120
Chapter 8: Discussion and Conclusion.............................................................. 122
References ............................................................................................................ 127
Appendix A ........................................................................................................... 144
Appendix B ........................................................................................................... 146
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Chapter 1: Introduction, Executive Summary and
Recommendations
Introduction
In 2007 the (then) NSW Department of Community Services awarded a postdoctoral
fellowship to Dr Rebekah Grace. This fellowship was supported within the Children
and Families Research Centre at Macquarie University, NSW, under the supervision
of Professor Jennifer Bowes.
The NSW Department of Community Services initiated a competitive postdoctoral
scheme as part of their commitment to high quality research, as outlined in their
2006-2009 Research Agenda. The research proposed by Dr Grace focused on
families who lived in disadvantaged communities across NSW and their participation
in early childhood settings. This research gathered the perspectives of parents,
children and workers. The three-year research project commenced in July 2007, and
was designed to contribute to an evidence base that would directly inform policy and
service delivery with the Department of Community Services. Specifically, this
research addresses priority research area 4.1.1 How to effectively support children,
families and communities to be well functioning, safe and stable (DoCS, 2006).
This research was guided by the following aims:
1. To understand experiences of participation in early childhood settings
from the perspectives of parents and children who live in
disadvantaged communities within NSW.
2. To understand the barriers and facilitators to family engagement with
early childhood services from the parent and early childhood worker
perspective.
3. To respond to the call to hear the perspectives of children on matters
that directly affect them, and include them in research.
Executive Summary
One hundred and one families living in disadvantaged suburbs in NSW, sixty
children and forty early childhood workers participated in this research. Parents
completed questionnaires and participated in in-depth interviews. Children also
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participated in face-to-face interviews and early childhood workers participated in
focus groups. Of the 101 participating families, 81 were currently attending an early
childhood service and 20 had opted not to participate. The families and workers
represented families from suburban, rural and remote areas. There were 17
Indigenous families and 19 families from non-English speaking backgrounds in the
family participant group. Six of the early childhood workers interviewed were
Indigenous.
Findings
Findings from the parent interviews
Family interview data was coded and analysed to explore the relationships between
family variables and attendance, and family variables and engagement. For the
purposes of this research attendance and engagement were seen as the two
elements of participation, where engagement implies ongoing involvement in a
service beyond enrolment.
Decisions around attendance were found to have a significant relationship with the
following four family variables:

Extent of professional involvement in the life of the family: families who were
involved with other service professionals were more likely to attend an early
childhood setting

Parental perceptions of safety: family decision making around whether or not
to attend a service was significantly influenced by parent views on how safe
the setting was perceived to be.

Parental concern about informal support available to them: the findings
suggest that it is not so much a simple count of informal support available to
families that influences their decision making, but the extent of their concerns
about this support. For example, a grandmother may be very supportive in
providing childcare, however the parent is concerned that continuing to care
for the children is becoming too much for the grandmother. Families who did
not use services were more likely to have concerns about the support
available to them.
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
Congruence between parents: families who attended early childhood services
were more likely to experience congruence between the parents in family
decision making.
Level of family engagement with early childhood services was found to have a
significant relationship with the following six family variables:

Flexibility of working hours: It was not the case that stay-at-home parents
were more likely to engage with centres. Working parents also engaged,
however level of engagement was significantly influenced by how flexible the
parents‟ working hours were.

Involvement of the father: families where fathers were involved in the day-today life of the child and in the family decision making were more likely to
engage with services.

Reliance on formal sources of information: highly engaged families were more
likely to gather the information they needed about services and raising their
children from formal sources, such as professionals within the community.

Informal support available to family: families with strong social networks were
more likely to engage with services.

Learning activities at home: highly engaged families were more likely to
include learning activities for their children in their everyday routines.

Perceived safety: highly engaged families were more likely to perceive the
early childhood setting as a place that is safe for both their child and their
family.
Families were asked to identify what they saw as the barriers and facilitators to the
participation of families in early childhood services.
Ten barriers were identified: five were pragmatic issues (cost, transport, opening
hours, availability, complex paperwork); three were service issues (quality, leaving
children vulnerable to becoming sick, teacher/child ratios); and two were personal
family issues (poor fit with family values, trust).
Fifteen potential facilitators were identified by parents: seven related to service
features (flexible hours, close to home, parent education programs, co-located with
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primary school, LDC includes a preschool program, meals provided, integrated with
other services); three were staff features (highly trained, welcoming, culturally
diverse); and five were related to family features (good staff/child relationships, good
parent/child relationships, involvement with DHS, older sibling attended, cultural
diversity).
Findings from the child interviews
Of the sixty children who were interviewed, 47 were attending an early childhood
service at the time of the interview. It is the findings from those 47 children that are
presented in this report. Twenty-three of the children were boys and 24 were girls.
The group included 12 Indigenous and 5 CALD children. Thirteen of the children
were three years old, and 34 were 4 or 5 years old.
The children spoke about the rituals of arriving at the early childhood setting. They
gave emphasis in this discussion to the notion of ownership. They valued having
belongings, such as a bag and lunch box, that was unique to them and they liked
having their own place in which to put their belongings. Children also valued
individual acknowledgement and greeting from the workers on arrival because it
helped them to feel a sense of belonging.
Children listed eight different activities that happened during the early childhood
day. The most mentioned activity was outside play. The children valued opportunities
to be outside and particularly the opportunity for adventure and to challenge
themselves in their physical abilities.
The children were asked about their feelings. Thirty four percent of children said that
they were mostly happy at their early childhood service, 6% said they were mostly
excited, 32% said they were mostly sad, 17% said they were mostly angry, and 11%
said they were mostly scared. In total 60% of the children identified feeling primarily
negative emotions in the early childhood setting, whilst 40% identified feeling
primarily positive emotions.
Three additional themes emerged in the child interviews. The first was
„Connectedness‟: it was very important to the children to have strong individual
relationships with both adults and children in the settings. The second theme was „A
special object‟: the children valued having attachments to particular objects within
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the setting and particularly valued being able to bring to the setting objects from
home that were meaningful and comforting to them. The third theme was
„Incongruence‟: the children spoke of the disconnect between home and the early
childhood setting, and enjoyed times when the setting felt more like home.
Findings from the worker interviews
The 40 participating early childhood workers raised issues related to the support of
families and the support of the staff and the service as a whole. In relation to
families, five main themes emerged:

Social disengagement: workers were concerned for families who did not have
networks within the community either because they were new in town or
because they had chosen to remain isolated. Workers felt challenged in
knowing how to reach out to these families and ensure that they knew about
available services.

Building relationships: workers emphasised the importance of a strengthsbased
approach
in
working
with
families,
and
the
importance
of
communication to build trust.

Complex family challenges: the families these workers were working with
experienced many complex problems. Services were working hard to support
families but expressed the need for additional support because the needs of
the families were so complex.

Accessibility: the early childhood workers spoke about issues of accessibility,
such as the importance of assisting families with transport and the cost of
attendance.

Supporting Indigenous families: the indigenous early childhood workers
emphasised the importance of respect for families, cultural understanding, the
inclusion of Indigenous culture in settings and the employment of Indigenous
staff.
Two main themes emerged in relation to the support needs of early childhood staff
and services:

Quality: workers spoke about the importance of maintaining worker morale
because staff members working with disadvantaged and complex families
were at risk of burnout. Maintaining a quality service was also contingent upon
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ongoing professional development and the workers described many
challenges to achieving this. Inadequate funding and their frustration with the
administrative tasks involved in securing funding were also important issues.

Integrated services: some staff felt that an integrated model of service delivery
would benefit families.
Recommendations have been developed on the basis of study findings.
Recommendations
1. Building stronger links between services within the communities
An important pathway for families leading them into participation with early childhood
services is through their involvement with other professionals and services within the
community, including ante-natal services, health, housing and intervention services.
We recommend the preparation and release of information about the importance of
early childhood services to be distributed to other service professionals within the
community, including information on the early childhood services available within the
local community.
Also related to the building of these links is the provision of information to early
childhood professionals about the other support services available within their local
communities so that they know where to direct families.
One potential solution within communities would be to establish a local advisory
service made up of a practising social worker, early childhood worker, psychologist,
medical doctor and allied health professionals who were all willing (and ideally
compensated) to take calls from other professionals within the local community to
offer advice on matters related to supporting families and children.
2. Building relationships between workers and families
Professional development for early childhood workers on the skills involved in
building relationships with parents and children within the context of their setting is
required.
Family participation within the day-to-day routines of the centre should be
encouraged as much as possible. It is also important that centres encourage and
facilitate the involvement of fathers.
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The employment of culturally diverse staff to reflect local demographics is an
important facilitator to the building of relationships and trust.
3. Informing and supporting parents
It is important that information of the value of early childhood education is made
available to families. Families need to know that most early childhood services are
not intended as care only services to support mothers who cannot be with their
children for a certain number of hours each day. The educational and developmental
benefits need to be more widely understood. Families also need to be made aware
of the regulatory requirements that surround centres, and be advised on how to
know whether or not a centre is of high quality. Widely distributed pamphlets are
helpful, but may limit the spread of information to families with low literacy rates. A
short television commercial would be an ideal medium in which to communicate
basic information to parents and potentially build community support for the
engagement of families with early childhood services.
One group of workers in this study suggested the employment of a local “early
childhood liaison officer”. The role of this person would be to make contact with
families who have children in the 3 – 5 age bracket and talk to them about early
childhood education. This person could also assist interested families in completing
the paperwork necessary for enrolment and direct them to other support services
within the community. There would be value for families in having a point of contact
with a community professional when their child was around 3 years old. Professional
support and home-visits are now routine when a child is first born, but there needs to
be another point of contact in which we check with families about whether or not
things are still OK.
A parent in this study suggested that each community have information nights in the
town hall titled something like “What Tweed Heads has to offer for 3 year olds”. At
that meeting parents would be told about all the services available for three year olds
within the community including early childhood programs, most appropriate parks,
etc.
4. Creating early childhood settings that are valued by children
The findings from the child interviews suggest that children value having their own
space within an early childhood setting that is theirs alone, even if only a hook for
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their bag. Children should also be greeted individually upon arrival. The inclusion of
objects that are meaningful to the children within the setting is also important.
Facilitation of the development of relationships and attachments to workers within
the settings was also valued by the children.
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Chapter 2: Review of the Literature
There is an extensive body of international and Australian research literature that
addresses issues surrounding child poverty, social exclusion and models of
intervention that target the most vulnerable children and families. The current review
gives focus to disadvantaged young children, specifically to the facilitators and
barriers to their participation in early childhood education and care services.
It
begins by discussing what is meant by the term „disadvantage‟, then looks at what
we know about the current state of engagement in early childhood services for
disadvantaged families, the potential barriers and how these might be overcome.
Defining Disadvantage
Poverty
Global organizations such as UNICEF (2005, 2007) define poverty primarily on the
basis of household income. For example, The Innocenti Research Centre‟s Report
Card No. 6 (2005) defines a family living in poverty as having a household with an
income lower than 50% of the national median income. UNICEF acknowledges that
this is a fairly crude economic measure and stresses the importance of interpreting
this data in light of the social trends, labour markets and the government policies of
individual countries. Nonetheless, household income is effective in painting the
broad brushstrokes required for the purposes of cross-country comparison.
It is interesting to note that by these measures Australia‟s child poverty rate in 2005
was 14.7% with Australia ranked 16th of the 24 countries included in the comparison.
Denmark and Finland were the top ranking countries with child poverty rates under
3% (UNICEF, 2005). In 2007 Australia showed a decrease in child poverty, moving
from 14.7% to 11.6%. Denmark and Finland remained the best performing countries
with rates of 2.4% and 3.4% respectively. The mean child poverty rate for the 25
rich nations was 11.2% (UNICEF, 2007), placing Australia just a little above average
but a long way below the standards set by Denmark and Finland.
Research from the National Centre for Social and Economic Modeling (NATSEM)
reports that child poverty rates in Australia are higher than adult poverty rates,
primarily because one adult who lives in poverty may have multiple children (Tanton
et al., 2006). It is also important to remember that there can be mobility for families in
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and out of poverty, with sustained periods of poverty particularly in the early
childhood years being more detrimental for children than transitory poverty (BrooksGunn, 1995; Daly et al., 2006).
Australian research on poverty has, in general, adopted the internationally accepted
definition of poverty described above, with the „poverty line‟ being set at half of the
median household income (Bradbury, 2003). Over the last five years Australian
researchers such as Headey (2005) and Saunders, Naidoo and Griffiths (2007) and
organizations such as Mission Australia (2003) have called for the development of a
new multidimensional framework to guide research and policy that takes into account
the relationship between income and actual living standards and captures family
capabilities related to income, employment, health and family/social support
networks. A definition of poverty based on income and employment alone gives
focus to adult issues. It leaves us in danger of developing policies in response to
poverty which focus primarily on parents and overlook the service and support needs
of children (McDonald, 2007). Research and policy aimed at addressing the
complexity of poverty within our communities is better served by moving beyond
measures of income towards wider measures of social exclusion and disadvantage
(Daly et al., 2006).
Disadvantage
The term „disadvantage‟ is intended to represent a multidimensional approach that
seeks to understand the complex relationship between income, standards of living
and social exclusion. Vinson (2007) argues that there are five indicators of
community disadvantage. For individual families these indicators will come together
in different ways depending on their own circumstances. The discussion that follows
will be organized under the five indicators nominated by Vinson: social distress
indicators, health indicators, community safety indicators, economic indicators and
education indicators.
Social distress indicators
Low family income
The impact of family income will vary depending on the social environment in which
a person functions (UNICEF, 2005; Marmot, 2003; Vinson, 2007).
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Family composition
Family composition factors have an impact on the extent of disadvantage a family is
likely to experience. Single parent families are frequently identified as being at higher
risk of disadvantage primarily because there are fewer potentially employed adults in
the household along with the increased likelihood that single parents will work fewer
hours because of their increased care responsibilities (Abello & Harding, 2006;
AIHW, 2007; Bradbury, 2003; Carbone et al., 2004; Mission Australia, 2003). People
who live in lone person households, such as widows, are also at higher risk of
experiencing disadvantage (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2003).
Income needs
Variables such as the expenses related to mortgage repayments or rent, day-to-day
travel, education, food, etc. will vary from one family to the next according to their
needs, exerting different levels of financial pressure (Bradbury, 2003; Mission
Australia, 2003).
Cultural Background
Whilst Vinson (2007) does not include cultural background amongst his indicators,
there is evidence that in Australia there is a stronger risk of disadvantage for our
Indigenous population as well as families from non-English speaking backgrounds
(Headey, 2005; Mission Australia, 2003; Carbone, 2004).
Health indicators
Disability
Living with a disability can significantly affect both opportunities for employment and
achieving social connectedness (Emerson et al, 2008). Parenting a child with a
disability also significantly increases family financial pressures and social exclusion
(Llewellyn et al., 1999).
Sickness including mental health issues
Family well-being will be affected if there are mental health issues or a chronic health
condition for one or more members of a family (Headey, 2005). There are higher
numbers of individuals who experience mental illness amongst the lower socioeconomic groups. Almeida et al. (2005) explain this in terms of an increased chance
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of experiencing chronic and acute stressful events combined with a lack of
resources, both material and psychological, to cope well.
Community safety indicators
Vinson (2007) points to child abuse, crime and violence as indicators of community
disadvantage, citing research to support higher rates of occurrence in disadvantaged
areas and the damaging effects of these variables on individual life chances and
social inclusion.
Economic indicators
Joblessness and parent employment patterns
Bradbury (2003) argues that the principal reason for families experiencing
disadvantage in Australia is joblessness. He notes that in 2003, despite Australia‟s
overall below-average unemployment rate, the unemployment rate of Australian
parents was the third highest of the 17 OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries. Family disadvantage is also influenced by
whether or not parent/s work part-time or full-time (Bradbury, 2003) and extent of
parent skills relating to employment (Headey, 2005).
Social assistance
Families differ in the extent to which they are able to access financial assistance
from both government and non-government organizations (Bradbury, 2003).
Dependents
There is a correlation between disadvantage and the number of children in a family,
with having to share family resources amongst more family members being
associated with a stronger risk of disadvantage (Bradbury, 2003).
Education indicators
Vinson (2007) points to the importance of completing high school education and
post-schooling qualifications. Importantly for the purposes of this report, Vinson also
identifies non-attendance at preschool as an indicator of disadvantage. This issue
will be explored in depth in this literature review.
There are two running themes throughout these indicators. The first is about money
and obtaining adequate financial resources to be able to secure the necessities of
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life according to individual family circumstances. The second theme is around social
exclusion, the inability to participate in the fabric of the community that surrounds
you. These forces work together to create disadvantage and can act as a vicious
circle, where not having any money causes people to withdraw (whether forced or
voluntarily) and experience social isolation, and isolation can affect a person‟s ability
to engage with the social and economic life of their communities (Mission Australia,
2003). Social support or „inclusion‟ is so important because it has been shown to
provide a buffer for children to protect them, at least to some extent, from the effects
of poverty (McDonald et al., 2007). Social inclusion is a key element in addressing
the effects of disadvantage for children.
Engagement with Early Childhood Services
Saunders, Naidoo and Griffiths (2007) identify three forms of social exclusion:
1. „Disengagement‟. This term describes when individuals and families
withdraw, for whatever reasons, from participating in the social life of their
community or engaging with community services.
2. „Service exclusion‟. This is when people experience a lack of adequate
access to key services. This exclusion might come about for a number of
reasons. For example, a person in a wheelchair may not be able to
access a service due to the absence of ramps, a family is denied a
service because they do not meet strict eligibility criteria, or the needed
service simply does not exist in a rural community.
3. „Economic exclusion‟. This term describes not having the money to be
able to afford services or participate in social networks.
This review is interested in the participation of families who experience disadvantage
in relation to early childhood services. Non-participation in early childhood services
for those with young children may be viewed as a form of social exclusion and an
indicator of disadvantage (Vinson, 2007). This review will explore these issues and
the extent to which non-participation reflects disengagement, service exclusion
and/or economic exclusion.
The participation of disadvantaged families
Within the international literature, particularly the large body of research literature
from the USA and the UK, there is a clear link between the socio-economic
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characteristics of a family and their engagement with early childhood services. While
the figures differ from one research paper to the next, general trends are evident
indicating low service usage amongst low-income compared to middle- and highincome families. Hirshberg, Huang and Fuller (2005) found that in the USA the
majority of affluent parents (70%) enrolled their 4 year old children in a preschool
program whereas enrolment rates for low-income parents were much lower (45%).
Leventhal et al. (2000) found that low-income families in the USA were most likely to
engage with basic health services in their communities only, with low rates of
participation in early childhood programs. Lowe and Weisner‟s (2004) research as
part of the New Hope project found that 44% of lower-income families versus 59% of
higher-income families used paid care arrangements. Dowsett et al. (2008) found
that, in general, higher income families were more likely to use formal child care
services, whereas low income families were more likely to rely on family day care or
care by relatives. However, Dowsett and colleagues also found that parents with
low incomes were more likely to use centre-based care when subsidies and other
policies promoting centre care were made available to them. Stanley (2006) argued
that in the UK there are five groups of families who are missing out on early
childhood education: (1) children living in workless households, (2) children living in
large families, 3) lone parent families, (4) working families on low incomes, and (5)
families facing higher cost barriers such as those who have children with disabilities
or special educational needs.
The Australian research shows similar trends. Paula Mance (2005) examined data
from Wave 2 of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA)
Survey for any evidence of associations between childcare use and family
characteristics. Mance (2005) found that a large number of low-income families with
children did not use any form of non-parental care at all. For families in the lowest
income bracket (below $40,000) 50.8% did not use any non-parental care,
compared with a much lower proportion of families with incomes in the $90-99,000
(12.5%), $70-89,000 (25.8%), and $40-50,000 (29.9%) brackets. Data from the
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2005 Child Care Survey (Commonwealth of Australia,
2008) also found that children from low-income families were less likely to use child
care, and less likely to use formal care. Data shows that for the 0 to 12-year-old
children of two-parent families earning less that $400 per week, 26.6% attended
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child care. In contrast, 59.0% of children living in families earning over $2000/week
used child care. For a middle-income group, earning between $800 and $999 per
week, 39.2% used child care. Looking more specifically at the use of formal care
services (long day care centres, out of school hours care, family day care and
occasional care centres), 13.8% of children in the lowest-income bracket, 28.6% in
the highest-income bracket, and 17.9% in the middle-income bracket used these
services (ABS, 2006).
Australian research also points to a discrepancy in the use of early childhood
education and care services between Indigenous and non-Indigenous families. The
Steering Committee for the Review of Government Services Provision (SCRGSP)
(2009) distinguishes between enrolment rates and attendance rates. They report
that the rate of enrolment for Indigenous children in preschools is high. Nationally,
the representation of Indigenous children enrolled in preschools (4.9%) is very
similar to their representation in the community (4.5). These recent figures from
SCRGSP (2009) are encouraging as reports on earlier figures cite lower enrolment
rates (e.g., Biddle, 2007; Dockett et al., 2007). The profound differences between
Indigenous and non-Indigenous children come when examining the SCRGSP (2009)
figures related to attendance rate. The national figures indicate that there are high
levels of non-attendance by Indigenous children (34.5%) when compared to nonIndigenous children (16.2%). Whilst there may not be barriers to enrolment for
Indigenous children, there certainly seem to be barriers to participation.
It is important to note that children from non-English speaking backgrounds are also
a very under-represented group amongst children attending preschools. On a
national level, these children make up 9.9% of the preschool population, but 18.7%
of the wider community. In NSW, children from non-English speaking backgrounds
represent 10.1% of the preschool population and 23.2% of the wider community of
NSW‟s children (SCRGSP, 2009).
It has been estimated that as many as 30% of Australian children in general, and
40% of Indigenous children, are missing out on early childhood programs (National
Preschool Census, 2007). It is clear that children from vulnerable families, such as
those who experience socio-economic disadvantage, are Indigenous or are from
non-English speaking backgrounds are less likely to participate in early childhood
settings. The next question to ask is why this matters so much.
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Why is participation important?
There are two main arguments put forward in the research literature to support the
importance of children attending early childhood education and care services,
particularly in the year before they go to school. These arguments are made on the
basis of (1) child development and education outcomes and (2) equity and social
inclusion.
Child development and education outcomes
It is well understood that in terms of child development the early years are the most
important. Early environments and experiences play a pivotal role in shaping the
developmental outcomes for individual children (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). We
understand that there are sensitive periods throughout the early years when the
brain is more strongly influenced by environmental factors with brain mechanisms
shaped and adapted according to their usage. For example, Eliot (1999) argues that
3 and 4-year-old children are generally most sensitive to establishing learning
patterns that influence their social skills and cognitive development. It therefore
makes sense for children of this age to spend time in an environment that provides
them with positive opportunities for social learning and cognitive exploration.
There is strong research evidence to support an increase in children‟s cognitive
development, language development and pre-academic skills such as pre-numeracy
and pre-literacy when they have attended a high quality early childhood centre
(Broberg et al., 1997; Burchinal et al., 2000; Harrison & Ungerer, 2000; NICHD
ECCRN, 2002; Vandell & Wolfe, 2000; Wake et al, 2008). There is also research
evidence to support the positive impact of quality early childhood centres on a child‟s
behavioural and social development (Diamond & Carpenter, 2000; Lee, 2005)
although this body of evidence has some conflicting findings (Hickman, 2006).
A very important emphasis in the above findings is on quality as a poor quality centre
does not offer the same capacity to enhance a child‟s development (Sylva et al.,
2008). De Schipper et al. (2006) found that an important aspect of quality was the
child to caregiver ratio. They compared the same caregivers in a 5: 1 and 3: 1 ratio
and found that a 3:1 ratio resulted in significantly higher quality child-caregiver
interactions and an increase in child well-being and cooperation. Other important
aspects of quality included the total number of children attending the centre and the
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education and training of the caregiver (Shivers, 2006; Vandell & Woolfe, 2000).
Perhaps the most persuasive evidence on the importance of high quality comes from
the „Effective Provision of Preschool Education‟ (EPPE) study conducted by Iram
Siraj-Blatchford and colleagues in the UK. This research continues to follow
approximately 2,800 children from preschool through their years of education. At the
end of primary school, the study participants were still showing the positive effects of
a high quality preschool experience. Children who attended a poor quality early
childhood program were not showing any effects at the same age. The positive
effects associated with a high quality preschool setting were strong even when the
child had been attending a poor quality primary school, suggesting that a quality
preschool experience provides a buffer against subsequent poor quality education
experiences (Sylva et al., 2008).
The take-home message is that high quality early childhood services are good for
every child. The benefits for children from disadvantaged households are potentially
even more pronounced. We know from the research that these children are at
greater risk of experiencing poorer health, cognitive development, school
achievement and socio-behavioural outcomes than
children who
are
not
disadvantaged (Brooks-Gunn & Duncan, 1997; Graham & Power, 2004).
Heightening concern is the suggestion in the literature, at least from the USA, that
young children from disadvantaged communities may be more likely to attend poorer
quality centres (Leseman, 2002; Magnuson & Waldfogel, 2005). The evidence in
favour of investment in the early years, particularly for disadvantaged children, is
strong. Quality early childhood programs have been shown to play a significant role
in improving developmental outcomes for disadvantaged children and closing the
achievement gap between children from low and middle-class families (Farrington &
Welsh, 2003; Karoly, Kilbrun & Cannon, 2005; Lee, 2005; Sylva et al., 2008; Warr,
2008; Zwi & Henry, 2005). Early childhood education and care services have also
become important components of child protection and early intervention programs
for vulnerable families (Carbone et al., 2004; French, 2001; Hydon et al., 2004).
Equity and social inclusion
Arguments around equity have been taken up by the current Australian government
based on their understanding of the potential benefits to children and particularly
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those from disadvantaged backgrounds. A return to government led discussion
around the provision of early childhood services within Australia based on a
philosophy of social inclusion and support of families is encouraging. Early childhood
services were initially established in Australia in the late 1800‟s, funded primarily by
philanthropic organizations. In the 1970‟s, with more women returning to work, the
Commonwealth government set a goal that all Australian children would have access
to child care by the end of the decade, and provided financial assistance to non-profit
services (Child Care Act, 1972). However, in the 1980‟s economic arguments were
dominant and the government bent to pressure to support commercial child care
providers. A clear philosophical shift was evident, as the emphasis moved away from
the needs of the child to a focus on financial profitability and the policy approach
became market driven (Brennan, 2009). In recent years we have seen a shift back
towards a philosophy of social inclusion, combined with an understanding of the
importance of quality in early childhood service provision.
The Rudd government instigated initiatives to ensure equity of access to quality early
childhood services across Australia. In June 2008, then Deputy Prime Minister Julia
Gillard in a joint statement with Maxine McKew (then Parliamentary Secretary for
Early Childhood Education and Child Care), announced an Australian Government
initiative to invest in early childhood services with the goal of achieving universal
access for Australian 4-year-old children to quality and affordable early childhood
programs by 2013.
The benefits of participation in quality early childhood settings extend beyond child
outcomes to families and whole communities. Engagement with these services has
the potential to link families with their wider community and to foster stronger
networks of other parents and professionals. This form of social inclusion not only
provides parents with regular periods of time when they are relieved of their child
care responsibilities but also increases a parent‟s exposure to information around
parenting practices, community events and parenting support. The respite,
information, social networks and models of adult-child interactions provided by early
childhood services are important to increase the resilience of families who are
vulnerable (French, 2001; Press et al., 2006; Scott et al., 2005).
More broadly, Vinson (2007) argues for correlations between community social
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cohesion and rates of preschool attendance. Engagement with early childhood
services is an important part of building strong communities for children that begin to
negate the effects of neighbourhood disadvantage and enhance a sense of social
connectedness and belonging (National Health and Hospital Reform Commission,
2008; Yuksel & Turner, 2008). To quote Tomison (1999 as cited by Yuksel & Turner
p. 8):
“. . . people who feel part of a vibrant, healthy community are
themselves more likely to see that they can contribute something
worthwhile to that community. This then, is the beginning of a cycle of
positive support and enhanced community life where individuals and the
wider social group reap the rewards.”
What are the factors contributing to lower rates of participation?
This section provides an overview of the findings from research that has looked at
why participation rates in early childhood services are low for disadvantaged
families. The factors that have been found to be influential in parent decision making
are organised for the purposes of this report into the three forms of social exclusion
postulated by Saunders et al. (2007): disengagement, service exclusion and
economic exclusion.
Disengagement
Beliefs about being a “good” mother
In 2005, Kelly Hand reported some of the findings from the „Family Work and
Decisions Study‟ conducted by the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS). This
study involved telephone surveys with 2,405 mothers and interviews with 61
mothers. She found that mother‟s decisions about child care were first and foremost
influenced by their beliefs around what it means to be a “good” mother. Mothers who
did not use child care services spoke of the belief that children were best cared for
by their mothers. Mothers did not want to miss out on seeing their child meet
important developmental milestones and did not believe that another person could
do a better job than them at caring for their child. It is important to note that mothers
in this study made a distinction between child care services and preschool. They saw
preschool as being an educational service to prepare their child for school rather
than a “care” service and mothers were much more comfortable sending their 424
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year-old children to preschool. Similar results were reported in another Australian
study by Reid-Boyd (2000).
A study conducted by NSW Health and Sydney West Area Health Service (2008)
gathered data from the Mt Druitt area in NSW. They surveyed 121 participants, 49%
of whom did not attend an early childhood service. A significant reason given for
non-attendance was that the service was not needed because the mother or
someone else was available to care for the child. Once again, this reflects a belief
that early childhood services are primarily there to provide care and that the first
preference is for mothers to care for their own children and, if not mothers, then
close friends and family. Leseman (2002) found that the choice of non-parental
family care as opposed to centre day care was positively predicted by the presence
of a grandparent.
Distrust
Closely linked to ideas around who should play care roles in the life of a child is the
notion of trust. Parents may feel more comfortable leaving their child with a family
member or friend with whom they already have a relationship of trust and whom they
feel assured will treat their child lovingly (Lowe & Weisner, 2004; Rice et al., 2005;
Yoshikawa et al., 2006).
Parents may fear that participation in an early childhood service will place them and
their children under the scrutiny of professionals who will evaluate their parenting
and leave them at risk of being judged to be an unfit parent and having their children
removed (Goodfellow, 2006; Warr, 2008). This fear may be particularly strong for
individuals who have had a history of involvement with government care and
protection services (Eddy, 2003) and those groups in the community who have a
history of extensive government intervention, such the Australian Indigenous
community (Biddle, 2007).
Culture
Indigenous participation
In understanding the low participation rates of Indigenous families, it is important to
understand the potential incongruence between the culture of an early childhood
education setting and the cultures of different Indigenous groups. The cultural
barriers that have been discussed within the literature include:
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
Fear that engagement with these settings will undermine Indigenous
culture in general. Parents may see early childhood settings as
“purveyors of the dominant macro-culture” (DeGioia et al., 2003). As
mentioned above, Indigenous parents may feel fear of being observed
and having their children removed. This fear is founded both on historical
context and current practices. We know that Indigenous children are still
six times more likely to be removed from their homes than nonIndigenous children (SNAICC, 2002).

Indigenous parents feeling judged and misunderstood because of their
ways of communicating with each other and some of their cultural
practices such as sleeping with their babies (Andrews, 2008).

Misguided and offensive attempts at teaching „Indigenous culture‟. It is
important that non-Indigenous professionals understand that Indigenous
culture differs from one nation to the next, and local elders must be
consulted to ensure that teaching is appropriate. For example, it was
offensive to one local Indigenous community that children were taught to
do dot paintings in a long day care centre as part of their education on
Indigenous culture. Dot paintings were not a practice of the local
Indigenous community (SDN, 2005).

Lack of respect for Indigenous ways of knowing. It is important to
embrace a notion of „multi-literacies‟ in which knowledge is passed down
through songs, poems, stories, dance and music (Butterworth & Candy,
1998; DEST, 2001; Power, 2004; Townsend-Cross, 2004).

Lack of respect for kinship networks. Kinship is not only about the
connections between people, it is also about the roles individuals play.
For example, only certain family members have the right to „growl‟ at
children (Fasoli & Ford, 2001). Older children are required to take
responsibility for the care and protection of their younger kin, and so to
divide children according to age or prevent a child from caring for or
protecting a younger child is to undermine that child‟s responsibility
(Butterworth & Candy, 1998; Fasoli & Ford, 2001).

Lack of understanding of Indigenous childhood. In Indigenous cultures
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children are often given personal freedoms, such as being able to made
decisions about when to eat and sleep (Butterworth & Candy, 1998;
Townsend-Cross, 2004). Children are also taught that all possessions are
shared, and may feel confused when they are required to ask before
using someone else‟s things (DEST, 2001).

Racism. Parents may want to protect themselves and their children from
experiencing racism (Cassady et al, 2005). MacNaughton and Davis (2001)
conducted an interesting study looking at the attitudes of young children and
early childhood practitioners about Indigenous people. They found that a
significant number of children did not have any knowledge of Indigenous
people and their cultures or saw Aborigines as primitive and belonging to the
past. Of the 25 early childhood practitioners involved in this research, 24 did
attempt to incorporate into their programs some teaching about Indigenous
culture but only two challenged colonial understandings. Ten of the
participating practitioners did not feel that it was necessary or appropriate to
discuss current issues facing Australia‟s Indigenous people. Low expectations
of Indigenous children may come about as the result of stereotyping. In the
Dockett and Perry (2007) study, some Indigenous parents spoke of feeling as
though teachers had low expectations of their children and so did not
encourage them to achieve.

Lack of Indigenous leadership and involvement at all levels. The
presence of Indigenous leadership and/or staff has been found to make a
significant difference to family participation (Biddle, 2007; Butterworth &
Candy, 1998; Cassady et al., 2005; Pocock, 2002; Windisch et al., 2003).
When the cultural differences are taken into account, Indigenous parents can be very
proactive advocates for and participants in the delivery of early childhood education
programs (Scott, 2008).
Other cultural differences
It is essential for all families that services are seen as culturally relevant and
meaningful before they are willing to engage (Scott et al., 2005). Families from
different cultural backgrounds may experience barriers to participation in early
childhood services for a range of reasons, including:
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
Families may feel at odds with an early childhood setting because they
have a different value system. For example, it is fair to say that in
Western cultures an „individualistic‟ model dominates where adults value
independence and social skills in children. There are other cultures that
subscribe to a „collectivist‟ value system where child compliance is valued
most highly (Whitington, 2004; Wise & da Silva, 2007).

Families may have different expectations of what educational settings are
for. For example, some parents may place an emphasis of achieving
academic goals and fail to see the importance of play-based learning
(Tobin et al., 2007). In this case they might see preschool as only a place
to play and “an expendable luxury within competing demands for scarce
household resources” (Warr, 2008, p. 32.). Wise and da Silva (2007) also
found that parents may have different expectations from practitioners
around when their child will achieve developmental milestones. Parent
expectations were higher than teacher expectations, a situation which
may lead parents to believe that the professionals in the centre are not
doing enough to facilitate the development of their child.

Parents may be concerned about how their religious beliefs will fit within
the centre. For example, they may be concerned that their religious
requirements around food will not be respected (Sanagavarapu & Perry,
2005).

Families may be concerned about racism or concerned that their children
will feel displaced and confused (Ebbeck & Reus, 2005; Whitington, V.,
2004; Wise & da Silva, 2007) or feel embarrassed or ashamed by their
cultural heritage (MacNaughton, 2001).
There are additional challenges for families who are new arrivals to Australia.
Communication and language difficulties can serve as a barrier to accessing
information about services in the first place and as a barrier to communicating with
professionals. Parents may be reluctant to engage because they do not want to be
seen as incompetent based on their difficulties with communicating in English
(Sanagavarapu & Perry, 2005; Warr, 2008).
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A lack of practitioner understanding and respect for cultural difference can cause
parents and children to feel that they are different and inferior to the dominant culture
which pervades the early childhood centre (Goodnow, 2008).
A lack of cultural
sensitivity on the part of the service can be a significant barrier to family participation
(Carbone et al., 2004; Duncan et al., 2006; ORIMA, 2003; Stanley, 2006; Walker,
2004; Lowe & Weisner, 2004).
Trauma
For families experiencing trauma, such as those who are refugees or are dealing
with issues of abuse, death or incarceration, the focus of their energies will be on
physical and emotional survival rather than on engaging with early childhood settings
(Goodfellow, 2006; Zubrick et al., 2008).
Feeling intimidated
If their own experiences have been negative, parents from disadvantaged
backgrounds may not value educational institutions of any kind or see education as a
pathway towards success in life (Leseman, 2002; Warr, 2008). They may view early
childhood settings and professionals as intimidating (Carbone et al., 2004). Most
parents are resigned to having to send their children to school when they arefive
years old, however those with a history of negative experiences may not want to
engage with educational services any earlier than is necessary.
Some parents may also find the administration that surrounds enrolment intimidating.
For example, completing enrolment forms and forms related to claiming the child
care benefit may be overwhelming, particularly for those with low levels of literacy or
who have had negative experiences with accessing government assistance (Huston
et al., 2002; Lowe & Weisner, 2004; Scott et al., 2005; Shlay et al., 2004). Walker
(2004) quotes one NSW parent who said:
“I just wanted some opportunity for my child to attend preschool like every
other child. Just trying to work through the paperwork and then realizing
that it‟s different depending on which preschool they are in.
Then it
changed all over again as she moved into school and that was a
nightmare.” (Walker, 2004, p.52)
Shlay et al., (2004) found that some parents did not access the child care subsidies
they were eligible for because they were afraid that they and their children would be
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treated differently by the early childhood staff if it was known that their participation
required government financial support.
Information
Another barrier to participation may be that parents lack information relating to the
services available in their community, the benefits of engagement with these
services for their child and the family, and how to go about accessing government
subsidy (Currie, 2004; Docket et al., 2007; Watson, 2005). The ORIMA research
report (2003) found that parent knowledge of services was limited and that users
could not distinguish between services provided by government, private sector or
community groups. They found that non-working parents reported the least adequate
access to information. Access to and understanding of information is related to the
literacy levels of parents (Biddle, 2007; Huston et al., 2002; ORIMA, 2003). Improved
linkages between services within the community is likely to improve parent access to
information and understanding of how to access early childhood services (Walker,
2004).
Perceived Quality
Parents will make decisions on the basis of their perceptions of the quality of the
services available. To quote a parent in Harris‟s study (2008):
“When you hand over to someone else – it‟s the hardest thing. Harder
than no sleep! And I couldn‟t – I‟d be sick to my guts if the place didn‟t
feel right. No matter how pretty it looked.” (Harris, 2008, p. 45)
These perceptions are strongly influenced by the attitudes and behaviours of the
staff they encounter. Staff who come across as being judgmental, as having a rigid
position on the role of parents, who are poor communicators or show a lack of
responsiveness to parent requests are likely to be seen by parents as reflective of a
poor quality centre (Carbone et al., 2004; NSW Health and SWAHS, 2008).
Social volatility
Warr (2008) presented a case study of an early childhood centre in a disadvantaged
community in Victoria. When asked about the barriers to participation, staff identified
the volatility of the parents‟ social network. Many of the parents had very limited
social ties with anyone outside their own neighbourhood, but strong connections
within their neighbourhood. While this could be a very positive thing, the intensity of
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these neighbour relationships could also dissolve quickly into serious conflicts and
staff reported incidents of conflict between parents at the centre and withdrawal of
children from the centre so that parents could avoid contact with a neighbour with
whom they were currently experiencing a disagreement.
Social isolation as the result of parent mental or physical health
Family and child engagement with early childhood services and the wider community
is significantly interrupted if a parent experiences mental health or chronic physical
health conditions (Carbone et al., 2004; ORIMA, 2003; Warr, 2008; Yoshikawa et al.,
2006).
Service exclusion
Availability and service hours
The participation of families may be prevented by limited or no services within the
local area. This is particularly a problem in rural and remote areas of Australia
(AIHW, 2007; Burns, 2005; Carbone et al., 2004; Harris, 2008; Leseman, 2002;
Morda et al., 2000; NSW SWAHS, 2008; ORIMA, 2003; Walker, 2004).
When services are available, conventional hours of operation may not be suitable for
those who work non-conventional hours (Huston et al., 2002; Lowe & Weisner, 2004;
Scott et al., 2005; Stanley, 2006).
Eligibility
There is often a high rate of unemployment in disadvantaged communities (Vinson,
2007). Non-working parents may be placed at the bottom of waiting lists because
government guidelines give priority access to parents who are working and/or
studying (Carbone et al., 2004). This may be an example of the concern discussed
at the beginning of this review, where policies to address poverty are focused
primarily on parent employment and income rather than the needs of the child.
Dorothy Scott expressed a similar idea in 2003 when she called on governments and
service providers to stop seeing early childhood services as “parental workforce
programs” only (p. 58) and begin to see that early childhood settings are effective
universal platforms for reaching vulnerable families in a non-stigmatising way.
Disability
In Australia the inclusion of children with disabilities in early childhood services,
whilst recommended, is not mandated. The Anti-discrimination Act requires that
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services do not deny service access on the basis of disability however research has
demonstrated that families who have a child with a disability often experience
significant difficulty in finding a centre that is willing to enrol their child. Families who
participated in the research by Grace et al. (2008) described being rejected by five or
more early childhood services before finding a service willing to accept their child.
Services may also be resistant to facilitating the participation of parents who have
disabilities (Cuskelly, Grace & Hayes, 2008; Stanley, 2006).
The barriers for families who have children with disabilities centre around: (i) the lack
of adequate staff training; (ii) negative attitudes and reluctance to participate in an
inclusive environment on the part of key stakeholders such as staff and other
parents; (iii) difficulties associated with accessing supplementary funding due to the
complexity of state and federal funding requirements; and (iv) frustration of the part
of the parents of the children with disabilities when staff do not apply the strategies
necessary to the inclusion of their child within the setting (e.g., feeding techniques or
learning strategies) (Grace et al., 2008; Mohay & Reid, 2006).
Economic exclusion
Cost
It is argued that low income families find it difficult to absorb the costs of early
childhood education and care services (AIHW, 2007; Biddle, Carbone et al., 2004;
NSW, SWAHS, 2007; Stanley, 2006; Walker, 2004; Warr, 2008). Even with the
government child care subsidies, there is still a gap payment that parents must meet.
The financial strain is increased when an up-front payment is required each month
(Carbone et al., 2004).
Lack of private transport
The expenses associated with owning and maintaining a car or accessing
appropriate, affordable and timely transport may serve as a barrier for families in
engaging with services (Carbone et al., 2004; ORIMA, 2003; Warr, 2008). To quote a
parent participant from Victoria in Walker‟s study:
I know if I had a car and enough money I would take my child to
preschool, but trying to get there, to look after the other kids and to be
able to afford it is just too hard (Walker, 2004, p.14).
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A transient lifestyle
Various factors, including economic circumstances that require families to deal with
the home rental market or live in caravan parks, may necessitate a transient lifestyle.
Transiency makes it very difficult for families to find out about and build relationships
with community services such as early childhood services (Eddy, 2003).
A complex mix of interrelated factors
For ease of presentation in a report such as this it is helpful to break down the
various factors influencing decision making into separate categories. In real life,
decisions around engagement with early childhood services are influenced by a
complex and interwoven mix of values and beliefs, available information, perceptions
influenced by past experiences, individual characteristics, services available and
whether or not the family can afford them.
Lowe & Weisner (2004) discuss the quantitative and qualitative findings from the
multi-year study of low-income families included in the New Hope experimental antipoverty intervention in Milwaukee. This study investigated why low-income families‟
use of program-based child care and subsidies is low. Lowe and Weisner (2004)
stress the importance of early childhood services fitting in to the daily routines of
families. Every family had to weigh up what was meaningful to them, how they
wished to used their resources, and how any decisions made would impact on all the
members of the family. Lowe and Weisner (2004) argue that programs are more
effective when they stop requiring families to fit in with them and put the focus on
how they could better help families meet their competing responsibilities. This
requires services to be flexible and family-centred.
A family and child-centred
approach is vital in addressing disadvantage and caring for at-risk children,
especially because early childhood services are one of few interventions that have
an evidence-base to support the impact they have on child outcomes.
Initiatives and strategies that address the barriers to participation
Targeted strategies
In the United States in particular, there have been very large research-based
initiatives that have targeted the early years for children and families from
disadvantaged communities. For example, the Highscope Perry Preschool project
was developed in 1962. They divided their sample of 123 African American children
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from low-income households into a group that attended a high quality preschool and
a group that did not attend preschool. These researchers are continuing to find
significant differences in the outcomes for the two groups even now that these
participants are 40-years-old (Schweinhart et al., 2005). The Abecedarian program is
similar in that it targeted low-income African American families and provided a high
quality pre-school program with high staff ratios and individual enrichment activities.
These child participants are now in their mid-thirties and still showing positive
outcomes compared to a group who did not participate in this pre-school service
(Campbell et al., 2001). The New Hope Project is another American project with the
aim of assisting people out of poverty (Duncan, Huston & Weisner, 2006). This
project has a more family-centred focus in that it seeks to help families change in the
short-term as well as improve long term outcomes for children. This program
provides earning supplements to raise the income of families above the poverty line,
subsidised health insurance, subsidised quality child care and, if needed, a
temporary service job for parents. To be eligible to participate in this program,
parents needed to demonstrate that they were working for at least 30 hours per
week. Evidence from this study demonstrated that the program helped to reduce
poverty and improve the school achievement and development of the participating
children.
These kinds of large-scale longitudinal projects with a focus on early childhood
interventions do not as yet have Australian counterparts. However, that is not to say
that there are not many examples of organizations and professionals working
tirelessly to address issues of accessibility and service quality for disadvantaged
families. This report touches on only a few examples of initiatives seeking to break
down the barriers for disadvantaged families.
In Australia, Ross Homel leads the „Pathways to Prevention Project‟ (Homel et al.,
2006; Freiberg et al, 2005). This project is based in a disadvantaged multi-cultural
community and focuses on transition to school. They provide a preschool
intervention program to promote communication and social skills in children as well
as a program for parents that includes parenting training, supported playgroups and
support groups. This team took deliberate steps to overcome some of the barriers to
participation evident in research, including making the programs universal to avoid
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stigmatization of families, employing staff who shared the same culture and
language as the families, providing transport and offering programs at different
locations and times. Their results suggest positive outcomes for children and
families.
A large NSW Initiative is the Brighter Futures program. This is a program
coordinated by the NSW Department of Human Services and being delivered by
both government and non-government organisations. It supports vulnerable families
by offering
access to a range of key services including quality early childhood
services, home visiting programs, parenting programs, a caseworker and other
appropriate family supports (Department of Community Services, 2007). Evaluations
of this program are currently underway.
SDN Children‟s Services in Sydney runs a Parent Resource Program to support
families and children who are disadvantaged. SDN provides scholarships for
disadvantaged children to enable them to attend high quality early childhood settings
for three days a week. They also actively link families with a range of services to help
them address issues such as those related to substance abuse, mental illness and
domestic violence. SDN also conducts extensive early childhood staff training so that
staff can work well with „hard to reach‟ parents (Udy, 2005). Goodfellow et al. (2004)
have found that this program enhances outcomes for children, parents, staff and
communities.
Lady Gowrie Child Care Centres in South Australia, Queensland and Western
Australia are conducting the „Through the Looking Glass‟ program. This program
provides both quality child care services to children and intensive therapeutic support
programs for parents based on the principles of attachment theory. This program is
also reporting positive changes in children and families (Aylward & O‟Neil, 2008).
Eddy (2003) writes of the efficacy of setting up child-focused playgroups in caravan
parks in Queensland. These programs benefitted the children and served as key
mechanisms for entry by other services into the lives of families who were in trauma
and in need of connecting with other support services within the community.
Flaxman, Muir and Oprea (2009) explored the impact of the „Local Answers‟,
„Communities for Children‟ and „Invest to Grow‟ programs in Indigenous
communities.
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Their research points to the potential benefits for Indigenous families and children
when services are culturally appropriate and when issues of availability and
accessibility are addressed. It is of particular importance that programs allow time for
the development of relationships and for extensive community consultation: key
elements in the success of any program designed to improve outcomes for
Indigenous communities. Further research is required to document family and child
outcomes as the result of participation in programs that have been developed to
address the service needs of Indigenous families in the context of the cultural needs
and values of a local community.
Integrated services
Bringing different services and a range of professionals together to address in a
collaborative way the complex needs of disadvantaged families is one of the key
goals of all of the initiatives described above. In addition to the examples above,
there is a strong and growing body of research that argues for an integrated service
model that brings together health, education and welfare as the optimum early
intervention service model for families who have been identified as vulnerable (Doll
et al., 2000; De Gioia et al., 2003; Edgar, 2003; King & Meyer, 2006; Marsh et al.,
2006; Nicholson & Biebel, 2002; Pannell, 2005; Pocock, 2002). This body of
research provides a clear argument for the coordinated delivery of services as
pivotal to improved child and family outcomes.
The integration of health, welfare and education services, while ideal, is not
straightforward in Australia, especially because of the sometimes conflicting policies,
goals, indicators of achievement and funding mechanisms that exist across
government departments and across service sectors (Nichols & Jurvansuu, 2008).
Nonetheless, this is a model that is being embraced widely and many organizations
are working hard to break down the obstacles to genuinely integrated cross-sector
collaborations. An integrated service model has been applied in the delivery of
Multifunctional Aboriginal Children‟s Services (MACS). These services provide an
integrated and holistic service to Indigenous families based on strong cultural
philosophy and practice. Sims et al. (2008) point to their success in linking
Indigenous families with early childhood services. Recently, the importance of the
integrated service model to the delivery of services within disadvantaged
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communities was reinforced by reforms to the Council of Australian Governments
(COAG) agenda. The government has made funds available to support the
establishment of integrated child and family services in areas with high Indigenous
populations. This initiative will further open the way for research that examines the
key components of successful integrated service delivery.
Universal access
Another focus of current research in Australia is on the importance of universal
access to quality early childhood services. This emphasis is being lead by the
Australian government who has committed to reduce barriers associated with cost to
participation in early childhood services and to support a “world-class system of
integrated early childhood learning and child care‟ (Gillard, 2008, p.22; Gillard &
McKew, 2008).
Participation in universal services avoids the stigmatizing of disadvantaged families
(Udy, 2005). In their report „Inverting the Pyramid‟ (2008), the Allen Consultancy
Group makes a strong argument for the investment of resources in quality universal
services. They emphasise the importance of as many people as possible in the
community benefiting from the services available, and the potential of these services
to act as effective interventions to prevent families reaching a stage of crisis
requiring secondary and tertiary level services.
Contributing to the existing knowledge base
The research presented in this report seeks to contribute to the existing body of
research. The study employed a mixed-method design to capture the complexity of
family values, routines and decision making around early childhood service
attendance and engagement within the Australian context. It brings together the
experiences and perspectives of three different groups of stakeholders: parents,
children and early childhood staff. The research ensured that the views of
Indigenous and non-English speaking families were included as well as the
experiences of families from both suburban and rural and remote areas throughout
NSW. More specifically, the research presented in this report addressed the
following aims:
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1. To understand experiences of participation from the perspectives of
parents and children who live in disadvantaged communities within
NSW.
2. To understand the barriers and facilitators to family engagement with
early childhood services from the parent and professional perspective.
3. To respond to the call to hear the perspectives of children and include
them in research.
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Chapter 3: Research Approach
This research employed Ecocultural theory as a tool to understanding family decision
making and the daily life experiences of the participating parents and children. The
inclusion of children‟s voices was one of the important contributions of this research,
and particularly the use of findings from child interviews to inform recommendations.
Early childhood workers employed in centres in disadvantaged areas were also
consulted and their views on the support needs of families and services were
elicited.
This project set out to move beyond a straightforward understanding of who is
attending early childhood services and who isn‟t. It defines „participation‟ as
incorporating both child attendance and family engagement. The research examines
the barriers and facilitators for families in enrolling their child in the first place, and
then becoming part of the community attached to an early childhood setting.
An Ecocultural approach
Ecocultural theory was developed by Thomas Weisner, Ron Gallimore and
colleagues in the Socio-Behavioural Research Group at UCLA. Ecocultural theory
has grown out of anthropology and cross-cultural psychology (Gallimore et al., 1993;
Gallimore et al., 1989). This theory marries an individual‟s environment (i.e.,, their
ecology) and their culture (the meanings, beliefs, values, and conventional practices
learned and shared by members of a community). It focuses on families and the
ways in which family members respond to their circumstances and assign meaning
to the various aspects of their lives. The model acknowledges that there are forces
out of the control of families (including social and economic forces). However, it
stresses their ability to take individual and collective action to modify and counteract
these forces. It can, therefore, be described as adopting a social constructivist
perspective.
Within the context of their cultural setting and local ecology, families construct
developmental pathways for their children (Weisner, 2002). Both children and
parents play an important role in influencing the behavioural and emotional climate
within the home that supports child development (Spagnola & Fiese, 2007). These
developmental pathways are evidenced in and guided by the everyday rituals and
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routines of families. For this reason, the routines of everyday life are the critical units
of analysis for Ecocultural theory.
Identifying and exploring routines, or „activity settings‟, is argued to be the most
meaningful way of understanding what is most important to families and individuals
and how the surrounding ecological, social, and cultural variables impact upon their
lives. They are “a perceptible instantiation”, an “everyday conduit” through which the
environment affects an individual‟s experience and, in particular, in which the beliefs,
goals and priorities of parents are transferred to their children (Gallimore et al., 1993,
p.39). Activity settings include both deliberately constructed learning activities (such
as reading together, going to church, singing alphabet songs or visiting a museum)
and the naturally occurring routines and rituals in which adult-child interaction takes
place which may not generally be thought of as learning opportunities (such as
eating dinner, walking the dog, getting ready for bed or playing in the garden).
Activity settings provide a lens through which we can explore and gain insight into
the experiences of adults and children.
Ecocultural theory identifies five features as a “minimum definition” (Gallimore &
Goldenberg, 1993; Weisner, 1997, p. 182) to be explored in the study of everyday
routines:

People present during an activity (or who should be present)

Salient cultural values and beliefs

Operations and task demands of the activities themselves

Scripts for conduct that govern the participant‟s actions (i.e.,, scripts for
normative or appropriate conduct)

Purposes or motives of the participants and their engagement in the
activity
The everyday routines and their constituent activity settings are manifestations of the
family‟s „Ecocultural niche‟. Because broad cultural pressures and socioeconomic
constraints and resources are always changing and because families and individuals
must constantly make accommodations, the Ecocultural niche is not static but
constantly adapting to changed circumstances (Gallimore et al., 1989).
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The application of Ecocultural theory to the current
research project
Ecocultural theory provides a good foundation for the current research. This
research deliberately set out to capture the complexity of family‟s lives. To conduct
interviews that focused on one key question only (e.g.,, Why do you / do you not use
early childhood services?) would potentially limit the information we would gather
about the family and the complex mix of factors that influence family decision making
around service engagement. Ecocultural theory leads us to see participation in early
childhood services as an activity that will only happen in the life of a family if the
routines that surround this participation are meaningful and sustainable for a family
within the context of their own Ecocultural niche.
This theory supports the exploration of the meanings families attach to the
circumstances of their everyday lives, and their proactive responses to these
circumstances. It guides us to see families and their decisions about early childhood
settings within the context of the family‟s “cultural place”, and as an active unit,
balancing the external forces with the needs of each family member as they seek to
construct a life that fits with the meanings and values important to them.
Including the voices of children in research
Over the last decade there has been a rapidly expanding interest in including the
perspectives of children in research. Instead of doing research „about‟ children (as
subjects whose behaviours and responses are observed, recorded and interpreted
by adults), researchers across varied disciplines are seeking to construct research
„with‟ children and to understand the experiences of children from their own
perspectives and in their own words.
An interest in children‟s accounts of their own experiences has a long history,
particularly within anthropological research (e.g., Mead, 2001) and the study of
children‟s testimony in legal settings (see Westcott, Davies & Bull, 2002). The surge
of more widespread research interest in children‟s perspectives has been fuelled by
both political and theoretical forces. It is strongly influenced by the current political
climate where the social justice movement is strong and the UN supports a
Children‟s Rights agenda (United Nations, 1989). Hand in hand with the social
justice argument is the cross-disciplinary influence of the „New Sociology of
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Childhood‟, a theoretical framework developed by Prout and James which
emphasizes that children are not passive beings in the process of „becoming‟, but
capable and active participants in their environments (Prout & James, 1997; Prout,
2001; Prout, 2002).
There are several articles that provide comprehensive reviews supporting the
importance of including young children in research (Darbyshire, Schiller &
MacDougall, 2005; Fasoli, 2003; Hogan, Etz & Judge, 1999; Sorin, 2003; Thomas &
O‟Kane, 2000). The great challenge for contemporary researchers lies not so much
in accepting the value and relevance of children‟s experiences but in determining
how to meaningfully include the voices of children for the purposes of research
(Darbyshire, Schiller & MacDougall, 2005, p.468).
Gathering children‟s perspectives
The large majority of research that includes children‟s perspectives has involved the
participation of older children of at least school age (e.g.,, O‟Brien & Moules, 2007;
Ridge, 2002). Research with younger children has proceeded with significantly more
caution with some researchers expressing a concern that the cognitive levels of
young children may pose an obstacle to the gathering of meaningful data (e.g.,,
Zabriskie & McCormick, 2003). Growing evidence demonstrates that it is not the
level of cognitive sophistication that has necessarily been the obstacle to the
participation of young children but “the extent to which adults can „read‟ their voice
and provide a supportive framework for them to speak” (Smith, Duncan & Marshall,
2005, p.474; Docket & Perry, 2007). In other words we are still learning how best to
scaffold the meaningful participation of young children in research.
A range of techniques has been explored to scaffold young children‟s telling of their
own stories. They include use of puppet techniques (e.g.,, Measelle, Ablow, Cowan
& Cowan, 1998), dolls and other toys (e.g.,, Daycare Trust, 1998; MacNaughton,
2003), smiley faces and ranking games (e.g.,, O‟Kane, 2000), role plays (Evans &
Fuller, 1996), using stories or vignettes (e.g.,, Barter & Renold, 2000; Borland, Mill,
Laybourn & Stafford, 2001; Dockett & Perry, 2005; MacNaughton, 2003), asking
children to take photos (e.g.,, Dockett & Perry, 2005; Einarsdottir, 2005), and to do
drawings (e.g.,, Angelides & Michaelidou, 2009). These techniques have been used
in research to explore a wide range of topics, from transition to school (Dockett &
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Perry, 2005) through to understanding of diversity (MacNaughton, 2003) and body
image (Birbeck & Drummond, 2005).
There is also strong support for the effectiveness of the face-to-face interviewing of
children, including children of pre-school age (Formosinho & Barros Araujo, 2006;
Neill, 2005; Smith, Duncan & Marshall, 2005). However, an interview with a young
child requires different skills from those involved in gathering qualitative data from
adults (Flewitt, 2005). There is a body of literature that argues that the younger the
child, the higher their level of suggestibility (e.g.,, Chae, 2005; McConnell, 1963).
This possibility must remain paramount in the mind of the interviewer and every
effort made to avoid phrasing or gestures that may suggest a desired response.
Questions need to be worded simply and researchers should listen carefully,
avoiding the temptation to make assumptions or to put words in the child‟s mouth. It
is also essential that time is invested prior to the interview in building rapport and
connecting with the child. Sumsion (2003) stresses the importance of understanding
the differentials in power and approaching interviews with young children with
humility (i.e.,, approaching children with the attitude that the information they are
giving you is a gift), reciprocity (i.e.,, the researcher should answer the children‟s
questions and share information in return) and community (i.e.,, develop a shared
repertoire of practice by, for example, demonstrating mutual respect and enabling
choice for the child at every opportunity).
Researchers have experimented with single and mixed-method designs and may
use the repertoire of research strategies available in very different ways. To take
children‟s drawings as an example, there are researchers who analyse the drawings
of young children and seek to understand a child‟s feelings and perspectives
primarily through the language of their art (e.g., Malchiodi, 1998). Some researchers
such as Angelides & Michaelidou (2009) gather their data from both interviews and
drawing analysis. Other researchers ask children to draw pictures primarily as a tool
to enhance the gathering of interview data. Dockett & Perry (2003), for example,
found that the act of drawing served as an excellent conversation prompt when
interviewing young children. They found that drawing also provided a reprieve from
the pressure of needing to make eye contact. It is not the produced drawings
themselves that served as data for this kind of research but the conversations that
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surrounded and were facilitated by the act of drawing. Brooker (2001) also argues
that drawing is an effective and respectful method to initiate and enhance
conversation with children for research purposes.
To date, arguably the most effective methodological approaches have combined
face-to-face interviews with other activities. Clark (2005), for example, argues for a
„mosaic approach‟, a multi-method framework combining data gathering techniques
such as interviews, photos, photo-book making, child-led tours and map-making.
Applying the Ecocultural approach to research with
children
The questions that are asked in research should be guided by theory. Wiltz and Klein
(2001), for example, use frameworks supported by social cognition theory and script
theory. Social cognition theory addresses the “developmental process by which
children come to understand and act on their social environment . . .” (Wiltz & Klein,
2001, p. 211). It seeks to understand what children bring to an experience, how the
experience is structured, and how (or whether) children make sense of the
experience. Script theory argues that young children‟s event knowledge is organized
around the structure of their routine and daily activities. Clear links with these
theoretical foundations are evident in the questions used by Wiltz and Klein (2001) to
talk to children about their preschool experiences.
As discussed above, the research presented in this report was guided by Ecocultural
theory. Ecocultural theory is highly consistent with the premises of social cognition
theory as well as script theory and the importance of event memory for young
children. Its strength is in providing concrete units of analysis within a theoretical
framework.
Prior to the commencement of the current research project, we piloted the
application of Ecocultural theory in interviews with eight young children about their
experiences in prior-to-school settings. The utility and effectiveness of an Ecocultural
approach was supported in this pilot research (Grace & Bowes, 2009).
This is not the first time Ecocultural theory has guided research relating to prior-toschool child care settings. Lowe and Weisner (2004), for example, employed
Ecocultural theory and ethnographic methods including parent interviews to explore
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the relationship between the values and beliefs of low-income families in the United
States and their child care preferences. The research described in this report is,
however, the first time an Ecocultural approach has been applied in research on the
perspectives of young children.
The application of an Ecocultural approach to child interviews requires that interview
questions focus on activity settings. Instead of asking, for example, “What do you
think about going to preschool?” – an abstract and difficult question – we can ask
children about their routines, about what they do, and understand what is important
to them through their descriptions of their activities.
The insight will come by
focusing on what may seem to adults as mundane, rather than placing the focus
where educators often do, on the deliberately constructed learning opportunities and
objectives of early child care settings.
For young children, questions that focus on what they actually do make sense. It is
essential that the questions asked in any interview are meaningful to the participants.
Key to the Ecocultural approach (with adult or child interviews) is the concreteness of
the units of analysis, the everyday routines in context. For the purposes of the
research described here, the primary objective is to understand how children identify
and perceive all the activities (and the people, scripts and feelings associated with
these activities) that surround their child care experience.
Defining the concept of engagement
The word „engagement‟ is often used to refer to the processes and strategies
involved in the initial connection of a family with a service. In the social work
literature, for example, engagement generally refers to referral pathways and the
early commitment of a client to attend a service. However, it is also argued that
discussion about and measurement of engagement should be extended to capture
the participant‟s ongoing interactions with the service (Yatchmenoff, 2005).
Australian researchers Cortis, Katz and Patulny (2009) discuss the concept of
engagement. Their research contributed to the national evaluation of the Stronger
Families and Communities Strategy (SFCS) 2004–2009 for the Department of
Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA). Cortis et
al. (2009) gathered data relating to family engagement for hard-to-reach families
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from the perspectives of service workers. They cite McCurdy & Daro (2001) as
identifying the key concepts in understanding the challenges to engagement for
hard-to-reach families:
1. Individual factors (e.g.,, individual beliefs and attitudes, lack of trust or social
confidence)
2. Provider factors (e.g.,, cultural appropriateness and sensitivity, service
delivery style)
3. Practice approaches (e.g.,, having time and resources to build relationships)
4. Program funding (e.g.,, stability of funding to prevent disruption)
5. Social and neighbourhood factors (e.g.,, social norms and expectations)
The qualitative analysis of their interview data indicated that there are three key
strategies that are generally employed to enhance family engagement. The first they
have labelled „intervention design and practice‟. This describes such things as the
outreach strategies of the service, the ability of the service to tailor their activities to
the needs of particular groups, and the building of relationships within a strengthsbased framework. The second group of strategies they label „networks and
partnerships‟. This describes the importance of building strong relationships with
other services that the target families might already be engaging with. The third
group of strategies are organized under the label „staffing‟. Engagement may be
facilitated by employing staff who are from hard-to-reach groups themselves (e.g.,
Indigenous staff or CALD staff). Staff quality and ratios are also very important.
The current research will seek to understand family engagement in universal,
mainstream settings. The services that feature in this research are early childhood
services. It is not uncommon for thinking around participation and engagement within
these settings to focus on the children, once initial contact and enrolment has taken
place, as it is the children who are the people in attendance at these services. The
current research seeks to measure ongoing family engagement beyond initial
enrolment. We know from the research cited in Chapter 2 that participation in an
early childhood setting has the potential to extend beyond benefits for the child alone
to benefits for parents, families and communities. Our position is that early childhood
services, particularly those that service vulnerable and disadvantaged families, must
be supported in providing a family-centred service and continue to move away from
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perceiving themselves as services for children only. For example, if parents are to
learn from the modelling that staff provide on how to interact with their children, there
must be opportunities for them to spend time within the setting. If early childhood
settings are going to serve as hubs for information and referral of families to
appropriate support services, staff must build relationships of trust with parents. If
early childhood staff are going to play key roles as part of an intervention team for
children with special needs, there must be non-judgmental and open communication
with parents and other professionals. If early childhood environments are going to
facilitate the development of social networks, there must be opportunities for parents
to build relationships with each other.
The current project explores the extent of ongoing family engagement with early
childhood services and examines engagement in relation to other family factors.
Summary
This research explores the perspectives of parents, children and workers on the
barriers and facilitators to participation in early childhood services. The approach
to parent and child interviews in particular is supported by Ecocultural theory.
This theoretical framework gives focus to the sustainability and meaningfulness
of everyday routines within family life and service settings. The research
approach to gathering the perspectives of children is also strongly influenced by
previous research and an understanding of the importance of approaching the
interviews with children with humility, reciprocity, and a sense of community
(Sumsion, 2003).
The notion of service „participation‟ is used in this research to capture not only the
enrolment and attendance of children, but also family engagement. By
engagement we are referring to ongoing interactions and the building of
relationships between families and early childhood settings.
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Chapter 4: Methods and Procedures
A mixed-method research design was utilized to address the questions of this study.
In total there were 201 research participants: 101 parents, 60 children and 40 early
childhood workers. All of the participants were from targeted disadvantaged areas
within NSW, as described below. A demographic profile for each group of
participants is presented in this chapter, along details of the measures, procedures,
and analysis techniques employed in this research.
Target areas
There were seven NSW suburbs that served as target areas in this research. These
areas were selected in consultation with the research Steering Committee provided
by the Department of Human Services. Suburbs were selected based on the
following criteria: (1) there were no other Department of Human Services research
projects being conducted in that suburb at the same time; (2) the researchers had
contacts within the area that may have been able to provide some assistance with
recruitment; (3) the suburbs represented a spread of suburban, rural and remote
locations; (4) there were early childhood services within the area; and (5) the area
was identified as disadvantaged, as measured by a score of less than 5 on the
Vinson rating scale (Vinson, 2007).
The Vinson Rating Scale
In 2007, Emeritus Professor Tony Vinson released a report in which he rated every
postcode in Australia on a scale of 1 – 20, where a score of 1 represented a very
high rate of disadvantage and a score of 20 suggested minimal disadvantage within
the postcode area. The disadvantage rating was calculated by examining a range of
indicators, as listed below:
1. Social distress (e.g.,, rental stress, home purchase stress, lone person
households)
2. Health (e.g., low birth weight, childhood injuries, life expectancy, suicide,
disability)
3. Community safety (confirmed child maltreatment, criminal convictions,
domestic violence)
4. Economic (e.g., unemployment, low mean taxable income, access to internet)
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5. Education (e.g., non-attendance at preschool, early school leaving)
6. Community Engagement (e.g., membership of local groups, volunteering, feel
safe after dark)
Vinson‟s comprehensive research was felt to be the strongest basis on which to
select our target areas, specifically because his ratings capture the range of
variables that contribute to disadvantage beyond income alone. The indicators he
measures are designed to capture local characteristics and dynamics, such as sense
of social cohesion and resilience within a community.
The target areas
All of the target areas scored lower that 5 on the Vinson rating scale, indicating that
they are areas experiencing significant disadvantage as defined by the indicators
listed above.
Mt Druitt (suburban)
Mt Druitt (Vinson rating: 1) and some of its surrounding suburbs including Bidwell
(Vinson rating: 1) were targeted for recruitment of participants to this research. Mt
Druitt is situated approximately 35 km from Sydney. It is located in the Local
Government Area of the City of Blacktown. In the 2006 Australian Bureau of
Statistics census the Blacktown LGA had a population density of 1103 persons per
square kilometre. With a population of 299,797 (8.2% 4 years or under) it is the most
populous city in NSW and the third largest in Australia. Within the Blacktown LGA,
there are 30 different commercial and community-based early childhood services
including long day care centres, pre-schools, and family day care.
Wollongong (suburban)
Suburbs within the Wollongong area such as Warilla (Vinson rating: 3) and Mt
Warrigal (Vinson rating: 3) were targeted for the recruitment of research participants.
Wollongong is approximately 80 km from Sydney, with substantial industrial and
commercial areas. The estimated residential population of Wollongong is 198,324
(6.1% 4 years or under) (ABS, 2006). Wollongong is the biggest council area outside
the Sydney metropolitan area. There are 108 different commercial and communitybased early childhood services in the area including preschool, long day care,
occasional care, family day care and a mobile preschool.
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Bathurst (rural)
Suburbs within the Bathurst area such as Lyndhurst (Vinson rating: 1) and Mount
McDonald (Vinson rating: 2) were targeted for the recruitment of research
participants. Bathurst is in the central west of NSW and is located 207 km from
Sydney. The estimated residential population is 35,844 (6.6% 4 years and under)
(ABS, 2006). There are 16 different commercial and community-based early
childhood services within the area including preschools, long day care centres,
family day care, early intervention services and a child care service for the children
of prisoners.
Mid-North Coast (rural)
Research participants were recruited from the mid-north coast of NSW. Recruitment
efforts were primarily focused on Taree (Vinson rating: 2). Taree is located
approximately 300 km from Sydney. The estimated residential population is 45,146
(5.5% 4 years or under) (ABS, 2006). There are 22 different commercial and
community-based early childhood services in the area including preschool, long day
care and early intervention services.
Tweed Heads (rural)
Tweed Heads (Vinson rating: 4) was targeted for the recruitment of participants. It is
located 834 km from Sydney. The estimated residential population is 79,321 (5.3% 4
years or under) (ABS, 2006). There are 37 different commercial and communitybased early childhood services in this area including preschools, long day care, early
intervention and family day care.
Nowra (rural)
Nowra (Vinson rating: 2) is located in the Shoalhaven Local Government Area and is
149 km south of Sydney on the south-coast of NSW. The estimated residential
population of Nowra is 88,407 (5.5% 4 years or under) (ABS, 2006). There are 18
different commercial and community-based early childhood services in this area
including preschools, long day care, family day care and early intervention services.
Broken Hill (remote)
Broken Hill (Vinson rating: 1) is the largest regional centre in the far west of NSW.
The mining industry is the major economic driver of this town. The estimated
residential population of Broken Hill is 19,363 (6.1% 4 years and under) (ABS, 2006).
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There are 18 different commercial and community-based early childhood services in
the area including preschool, long day care, family day care and early intervention
services.
Recruitment
Once ethics approval for the research had been secured from Macquarie University
(See Appendix A), recruitment of participants commenced.
Recruitment of families
A range of strategies was employed in the recruitment of families, as outlined below.
1. Mail out to Early Childhood Centres
Approximately 80 early childhood centres within the target areas were contacted.
Initial contact was with the director of the centre by telephone or e-mail. The project,
its purpose and procedures, were described to the directors and the invitation to
assist with recruitment extended. Forty-nine directors agreed to receive project
material and a package was sent to them. This package included a poster
advertising the project to put on their notice boards and flyers about the project to
distribute to the parents who attended their centre. Interested parents were asked to
either call the researchers directly or complete an Expression of Interest slip
attached to each flyer and return it to the centre director, who would forward it on to
the research team. Twenty two of the 101 families were recruited to the project in
this way.
2. Assistance from the Department of Human Services
A presentation on the research was delivered to the DHS offices in all of the target
areas other than Taree and Bathurst. Case workers were invited to discuss the
research with their clients, to distribute flyers about the research and to encourage
interested families to complete and return Expression of Interest slips.
Eleven
families were recruited to the project in this way.
3. Assistance from community organisations
Various community organisations were contacted and asked to distribute flyers and
information about the project to the families they work with. Organisations included:
religious groups, toy libraries, playgroups and parent support programs. 46 families
were recruited to the project in this way.
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4. Informal distribution of flyers
Research team members placed posters and flyers throughout the target
communities, leaving them on shopping centre notice boards and in libraries. We
also attended the Whalan Community Fair (a suburb close to Mt Druitt) and
distributed flyers about the project to families visiting the fair. Indigenous families
were also recruited through more informal networks such as through community
networks known to Indigenous research assistant, Dr Michelle Trudgett. Twenty one
families were recruited to the project in these ways.
Recruitment of early childhood workers
Recruitment of early childhood worker participants was conducted by telephone and
e-mail. Directors from early childhood centres within the target areas were called and
invited, along with their staff, to participate in focus groups held in their own centre at
a time convenient to them.
Participants
The Participating Families
There were 101 families who participated in this research. For 91% of families, the
mother identified as the primary carer of the target child, completed the
questionnaire and participated in the interview.
As discussed above, these families were spread across seven target areas
representing suburban, rural and remote communities within NSW. The distribution
of families between the areas was as follows:
Suburban areas: Mt Druitt (n=30) and Wollongong (n=20)
Rural areas: Bathurst (n=11), Tweed Heads (n=10), Taree (n=16) and Nowra
(n=2)
Remote area: Broken Hill (n=12)
For the purposes of analysis the sample was divided into two groups: a city group (n
= 50) and a country group (rural + remote, n = 51). The distribution of families across
the suburban, rural and remote areas is illustrated in Figure 1.
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Figure 1. The distribution of participating families across areas
The sample was also representative of different cultural groups. Seventeen families
(16.8%) identified as Indigenous, and 19 families (18.8%) did not speak English as
their first language. The distribution of families across broad cultural groupings is
shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Cultural groupings of the participants
The participant group represented different family compositions. Seventy families
(69.3%) were two-parent families. Twenty-three (22.8%) were single-parent families
headed by mothers in all but one family in which a widowed father was raising his
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children. Eight (7.9%) families described themselves as extended families, either
because the grandparents lived with the family or because, in the case of two
families, great-grandparents were raising children who could not live with their own
parents or grandparents.
On average the number of children in each family was 2.84 (range: 1 – 10 children).
Mothers
For the purposes of this research, the term „mother‟ is used to describe the primary
female carer in the life of the child. For one family there was no-one fulfilling the role
of mother (widowed father). Mothers ranged in age from 19 – 67 years old, with an
average age of 37 years and 9 months. On average mothers had completed school
up to the end of high school (range: Year 9 – Postgraduate studies). Sixty-nine
mothers were not working outside the home, ten worked full time, 15 worked part
time, and six were employed on a casual basis.
Four of the participating mothers reported that they had an intellectual disability,
three reported having a speech and language disorder, two reported a mental
illness, one had a physical disability, and two indicated that they suffered from
chronic medical conditions.
Fathers
The term „father‟ is used for the purposes of this research to describe the person
who assumes the primary father role in the child‟s life. Ten families were not able to
identify a father figure. On average fathers were 37 years and 11 months old (range:
20 – 64 years). Most had completed up to Year 12 in high school (range: Year 9 –
Postgraduate studies). Thirteen fathers were not working outside of the home, 71
were employed full-time, five worked part time, and two were employed on a casual
basis. One father was identified within the questionnaire as having an intellectual
disability.
Children
There were 109 target children in this research as eight families had two children
within the 3 – 5 year age bracket, including five sets of twins. There was an almost
even number of boys and girls, with 55 children being male (50.5%) and 54 (49.5%)
female. The average age of the children was 4 years and 2 months (range: 3 years –
5 years 11 months).
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Parents indicated that 20 of the children (18%) had a diagnosed disability (a severe
or profound core activity restriction diagnosed by a medical or allied health
professional). The disabilities listed by the parents can be grouped as follows:

Language / communication disorder, 4 (3.7%)

Hearing impairment, 2 (1.8%)

Behavioural disorder (e.g., ADHD), 7 (6%)

Medical condition (e.g., Diabetes), 4 (3.7%)

Learning/intellectual disability (e.g., Global Developmental Delay), 3 (2%)
In addition, when parents were asked if they had any general concerns about the
development of their child, concern was expressed about the development of 39 of
the children (35%).
The participating early childhood workers
Forty early childhood workers participated in this research. They were from ten
different early childhood centres spread across the target areas (Mt Druitt,
Wollongong and Taree had two participating centres within their areas). Four of the
participating centres were NSW Department of Education preschools, and six were
long day care centres (two privately owned, one local council-operated, one run by a
non-Government organisation, one run by a corporate body, and one run by an early
childhood organisation). Four of the centres were in a suburban location and six
were in rural/remote locations.
The 40 participating early childhood workers were all female. Their average age was
36 (range: 21 – 60 years). The average length of experience working in early
childhood settings was nine years (range: 1 – 30 years) and the average length of
time in an early childhood setting within a disadvantaged area was 6 years (range: 1
– 30). The positions held by the participants are as follows:

Directors (9)

Teachers (8)

Teacher‟s aides (23)
Twenty-eight staff participants worked full-time, nine worked part time, and three
worked on a casual basis.
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Participant education levels are summarised below:

Up to and including year 9 (3)

Year 10 (5)

Year 12 (5)

Certificate or diploma (21)

University degree (6)
Six of the participating workers were Indigenous.
Measures
Parent Interview
An Ecocultural family interview was originally designed by Gallimore et al. (1989) to
guide research interviews with families that seek to understand the daily routines of
families and the meaning families attach to those routines. Yoshikawa et al. (2006)
adapted this instrument for use in their study of the child care choices of low income
American families. The current research has adapted the interview, questionnaire
and coding framework employed by Yoshikawa et al. for the purposes of the current
study. The adaptation has been minimal and primarily reflects an Australianisation of
the language (for example, changing a term like „Welfare office‟ to „Centrelink‟). It
should also be noted that the Yoshikawa et al. study employed ethnographic
methods and ongoing involvement with families whereas the current study asked
parents to participate only in a one-off in-depth interview.
The Ecocultural Family Interview involves the completion of both a questionnaire
and a face-to-face interview. For the purposes of the research described here,
motivated by an awareness that the participants of this research may vary in their
literacy rates, the questionnaire was completed with the assistance of the researcher
at the time of the face-to-face visit.
The Ecocultural Questionnaire
The questionnaire is a 52-item survey measure. This questionnaire provides the
following information:
Family Information: Child‟s sex and age, number of children in family, family
composition, family language and culture, information about mother and father‟s
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employment status and education, information about whether or not any family
member has a disability or special needs.
Social Support Network: Extent of support and concerns about support relating to
spouse, parents, relatives, friends and neighbours, professionals and religious
group. For the purposes of this research, support from Indigenous community was
also added to the questionnaires of Indigenous participants.
Child Services:
People available to help with childcare, use of formal early
childhood services, rating of parent satisfaction with formal early childhood services.
Financial Resources: Living situation, sources of income.
It is intended that the information gathered by the questionnaire be expanded upon
during the course of the interview.
The Ecocultural Family Interview (EFI)
The format of the interview was a mix of conversation, probing questions, and preplanned structured questions. This interview was designed to take the form of a
natural, easy-flowing conversation rather than a question-answer interrogation. The
objective was to encourage the interviewee to share their own perspectives as much
as possible using their own words, categories, and emphases.
The interview started with a very broad question, “Can you describe a typical day in
your family for me?” As the parent described his or her daily activities, it was the role
of the interviewer to probe about the goals, values, and preferences behind their
chosen routines.
For the purposes of this research, aspects of the family‟s „Ecocultural niche‟ were
explored as they related to nine dimensions of family life. These dimensions, along
with the sub-domains and variables associated with them are presented below. They
are the dimensions and variables established by Ecocultural theory as capturing the
critical issues in the lives of families (Gallimore et al., 1989). The Ecocultural
interview was originally designed as a tool to explore the decision making and
experiences of families of children with disabilities. A tenth dimension, „Disability
Network‟ was established for research in this context, and this domain was not
included in the current study. It was also the responsibility of the interviewer to
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ensure that the variables listed below were explored through the course of the
conversation. Interviewers were required to follow the lead of the interviewee, and to
cover these topics whilst maintaining flow and responsiveness in the conversation.
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Table 1. Ecocultural dimensions, domains and variables
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Coding of the Ecocultural Family Interview
The Ecocultural instruments combine qualitative interviews with rating scales and
codes drawn from sociological & psychological research methods.
As soon as possible following the interview (but not in the presence of the interview
participants) the interview was coded on each of the above variables, taking into
account information gleaned throughout the interview from direct probes, multiple
indirect probes, responses to the questionnaire, and interviewer fieldnotes recording
observations of the parent, home, and family circumstances. The scores on these
variables were added to give subdomain, domain, and dimension totals. A coding
framework was developed by Yoshikawa et al. (2007) for the „New Hope‟ study, and
has been applied to the current study with minimal changes to reflect the Australian
context. The interviewer was required to assign to each variable a number ranging
from 0 - 8 as follows:
0, 1 or 2 (little accommodation) - i.e., there is little or no accommodation activity
which was related to the target child for this family on this issue.
3, 4, or 5 (moderate accommodation) - i.e., there is some evidence of
accommodation which was related to the target child but it was not a dominant
theme for this family for this issue.
6, 7 or 8 (high accommodation) - i.e., accommodation related to the target child is a
dominant theme for this family on this issue.
An example of an item from the coding manual used for this study follows:
Household uses formal sources of information about government and social
services, including early childhood education
0, 1 or 2 = Very little. For example: Household members are not required to report
to Centrelink and so have minimal contact with this agency; Families are eligible for
government support or other community support services but are making no effort to
get any information about these services through formal contacts. 0 means that the
participant is not actively seeking information about government or other social
services from formal contacts.
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3, 4 or 5 = Some. For example: Family member has enquired about a job search
program, has attended workshops or seminars to gather information; family is
provided with information from a Department of Human Services caseworker.
6, 7 or 8 = A Great Deal. For example: Family has extensive involvement with a
Department of Human Services caseworker who gathers information for them and
links families to services; a minister from the church assists the family in accessing
social services. 8 means that the family relies heavily on formal sources of support
and information about government benefits and entitlements and other social
services including child care services.
The coding of qualitative data means that the information provided by families could
be analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods.
Barriers, Facilitators and Engagement
In addition to the discussion of the family life and routines, all parents were asked
directly about what they perceived to be the barriers and facilitators for families to
participating in early childhood services. Their responses to this question were
recorded.
In addition to the Ecocultural coding framework, all families were coded on level of
engagement according to the following framework:
0 – No engagement. Family does not attend or engage with early childhood services
at all.
1 – Low engagement. For example: the child is enrolled at an early childhood
service, but attends irregularly; the child attends but the parent does not attend any
events at the centres or communicated with the staff at all.
2 – Moderate Engagement. For example: the child is enrolled and attends regularly;
the parent communicates briefly with the staff at drop off and pick up and attends
events when they can.
3 – High Engagement. For example: the child is enrolled and attends regularly;
parents communicate often with the staff and volunteer in the rooms or on the centre
committees; parents have built relationships with the staff and other parents.
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The child interview
Children participated in a face to face interview that included the use of teddy bear
cards and a drawing activity.
The child Ecocultural interview
In keeping with the Ecocultural approach that calls for a conversational and flexible
style of interview, the child interviews were conducted in a manner that was intended
to feel as relaxed to the child as possible. Children were asked to talk about their
daily routines without any requirement that the account necessarily be given
sequentially. For each activity identified by the child, the interviewer would ensure
that the five elements of activity settings (as defined by Ecocultural theory) were
addressed: people present; cultural values and beliefs; task demands; scripts for
conduct; purposes or motives of the participants.
Because the child interviews were not coded quantitatively, they were not structured
around the dimensions that guided the parent interviews, although the topics
covered within the child interview fell within four of the Ecocultural dimensions:
Connectedness, Services, Structure of the Home Environment and Friendship
Networks. The emphasis in the child interviews was more firmly on the ways in which
children talk about the routines of their day. The child interview questions were
structured by dividing the day into five broad clusters of activity settings: (i) the
activities involved in getting ready in the morning; (ii) the activities surrounding arrival
at child care (if applicable); (iii) the activities of the day, (iv) the activities surrounding
pick-up time (if applicable); (v) the activities surrounding returning home / the
afternoon and evening. Examples of the questions are presented in Table 2.
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Table 2. Examples of child interview questions
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Teddy Bear cards
Before the interview commenced, the child was introduced to five teddy bear cards
depicting an angry bear, a sad bear, a scared bear a happy bear and an excited
bear. These bears and what they were feeling were discussed in turn. Children were
then asked if they ever felt like any of these bears. The bears were left on display
throughout the interview so that children could refer to them if they wanted to when
they were talking about their feelings in relation to their experiences. The teddy bear
pictures that were used are presented in Appendix B.
Drawing Activity
The children were asked to draw anything they wanted that related to their child care
or other experiences. Importantly, children were asked for their own interpretations of
their drawings. Similar to the use of drawings by Dockett and Perry (2003) referred to
earlier, the drawings themselves were not treated as data but as tools to facilitate the
conversations with the children. The narratives surrounding discussion of the
drawings (e.g., children‟s explanations of their drawings) did serve as data.
The early childhood worker focus groups
Early childhood workers participated in focus groups that were guided by the
following questions:
1. What have been your experiences in providing early childhood services to
families who experience socio-economic disadvantage?
2. What are the current supports available? What can you draw on to assist
these families?
3. Why do you think this group of families is difficult to engage in early
childhood services?
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4. How could services change so that they are more supportive of
disadvantaged families?
5. Are there additional supports you require as a professional to meet the
needs of these families?
6. Do you actively recruit people from disadvantaged families? Do you have
waiting lists?
7. If you were part of a strategy to engage more people with low SES in Early
Childhood Services, how would you go about it?
Procedure
Parent and child interviews
All parents who returned an Expression of Interest slip were contacted via telephone
by a member of the research team. The purpose of the research and what
participation involved was explained. All of the parents who were contacted in this
way agreed to set an interview date and time. Parents were asked to speak with their
pre-school aged children about the research and ask them whether or not they would
like to participate prior to the interview. Interviews were conducted at a time and in a
place convenient to the family. Most family interviews took place in the family home
with a small number taking place in cafés, parks or at the early childhood centre after
parents had left their child.
All interviews commenced with the completion of the questionnaire which flowed into
the interview-proper. All parents were presented with a $20 Coles/Myer gift voucher
to thank them for their participation. On average, parent interviews took an hour to
complete.
After the parent interview, the researcher asked the parent to introduce them to their
child (if this had not already happened). The researcher explained the research to
the child in age-appropriate terms, and asked the child if they would like to
participate in an interview. Sixty of the 109 target children agreed to participate in the
interview. Non-participation was as a result of a range of reasons from the child
having speech or comprehension difficulties that meant that informed consent could
not be obtained, to children needing to be somewhere else and unable to participate
at that time, to children saying that they simply didn‟t want to.
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A period of time was spent with children before the interview commenced in order to
build rapport. The interviewer asked the children if there was anything they would
like to do first. Typically, children were keen to show their craft work or favourite toys
to the researcher. One child asked the researcher to look at her baby photo albums
with her and another showed the researcher how he could ride his bike without
training wheels. The play and general talk before the interview took anywhere from
10 to 30 minutes.
The interview did not begin until the children were comfortable and agreed that they
were ready to talk about their experiences. Children were invited to choose where
the interview would take place and the researcher made every effort to sit at the
same level as the child. Children were also invited to ask any questions they wanted
to of the researcher and these questions were answered as simply and honestly as
possible.
Child interviews commenced with the introduction of the teddy bear cards. The
interview questions and probes were then explored with the child. At some point in
the interview, whenever the researcher felt that there was a need to assist the child
in engaging with the topic, children were asked to participate in the drawing activity.
On average, child interviews took between 20 minutes and half an hour.
The children were given a gift of a children‟s book to thank them for their
participation in the research. Children‟s drawings were only taken by the researcher
if the child gave their permission for this to happen.
Early childhood worker focus groups
Most workers participated in focus groups conducted at their place of work. The
available staff at the centre gathered at a time nominated by the director as most
convenient. The researcher provided food and drink for the focus group.
One early childhood worker was interviewed individually. This was the preference of
a director who did not feel that there would be a common time for all staff to gather.
Four Indigenous early childhood workers took part in a focus group held at
Macquarie University. These workers were from different centres but were gathered
together at the University because they were all attending an on-campus training
program.
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Analysis
Parent Questionnaire data was entered into the Statistical Package for Social
Sciences (SPSS) Version 17. Qualitative interview data was coded on 35 Ecocultural
domain variables. Inter-rater reliability was confirmed employing the calculation of
Cronbach‟s alpha, resulting in an inter-rater reliability coefficient of .83. Because a
normal distribution was not evident in the coded data for each question, the 8-point
coding scale was collapsed into a 3-point scale, whereby 0, 1 and 2 were assigned a
score of 1; 3, 4, and 5 were assigned a score of 2; and 6, 7 and 8 were assigned a
score of 3. Questions were asked of the data using chi-square and t-test statistical
procedures to explore relationships between family variables and whether or not the
child attended an early childhood service. ANOVAs were employed to examine
potential relationships between family variables and level of engagement. Qualitative
data from the family interviews have been used to support the quantitative findings
presented in this report.
Whilst 60 children were interviewed, only 40 of these children were currently
attending an early childhood service. For the purposes of this report and the
research questions it addresses, only the analysis of the child interview data related
to experiences within early childhood settings will be presented here. Child interview
data was analysed employing a thematic qualitative analysis approach. Analysis was
supported by the use of NVIVO to code and develop emergent themes and to
explore the relationship between child attributes and the emergent themes.
Early childhood worker focus group data was analysed using a thematic qualitative
analysis approach to establish emergent themes across the interviews.
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Chapter 5: Findings from the Family Interviews
This research set out to answer questions around attendance and engagement in
early childhood services for families with young children who live in disadvantaged
areas across NSW. Both attendance and engagement are key elements in the notion
of meaningful participation. The first questions that were asked of the data focused
on the differences between those families who did and those families who did not
attend a formal early childhood education setting.
Attendance
Of the 109 target children in this research, 21 children (19.27%) did not attend any
formal early childhood services at all. The remaining 88 children attended a range of
early childhood services including preschool (n=43), long day care (n=37), family day
care (n=7) and occasional care (n=1). The distribution is illustrated in Figure 3 below.
Figure 3. Early childhood service attendance
Attendance rates were not significantly different between the country and city
groups, with nine children (17.3%) in the city group, ten children (22.2%) in the rural
group and 2 children (16.7%) in the remote group not attending any formal early
childhood services.
Patterns of service usage in terms of the types of services families used were
significantly different when chi-square analysis was used to compare the country
(rural + remote) and city sample groups (x2 (4, N=109) = 12.127, p = .016).
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Preschool services were used by a total of 43 families (city n = 16, country n = 27),
long day care services by 37 families (city n = 25, country n = 12), family day care by
seven families (city n = 1, country n = 6), and one city family used an occasional care
service. These results are depicted in Figure 4 below.
Figure 4. Family service usage
The results presented in the table above draw particular attention to discrepancies
between the groups on preschool and long day care attendance, with preschool
being the most popular early childhood service within the country sample, and long
day care the most used service in the city sample. Hypotheses were developed to
explain these differences. We hypothesized that city mothers were more likely to
work full-time and hence required a service offering longer hours. This hypothesis
was not supported by the data. There were no significant differences in mother
employment between the city and country groups. A second hypothesis was that
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country mothers have stronger support networks and people available to assist them
with childcare and so are able to utilize alternative care arrangements to bridge the
difference between preschool and work hours. This hypothesis was also not
supported by the data. The most likely explanation is that this finding reflects the
availability of services within the target areas. This is supported by the higheruse of
family day care within the country group. Qualitative data suggests that family day
care was used by country families primarily because extended hours of care were
possible within this setting.
Cultural diversity and attendance
No significant differences were found between Indigenous families, non-English
speaking background families and non-Indigenous/English first language families
when we looked at rates of attendance. Whilst a statistically significant difference
between the groups was not found, the percentages presented in Table 3 hint at
slightly higher rates of non-attendance for Indigenous and non-English speaking
background families.
Table 3. Cultural diversity and attendance
Attendance at an
Indigenous
Non-Indigenous /English
early childhood
families
first language families
CALD families
service
Yes
No
Total
72
n=13
n=54
n=14
(76.5%)
(83.1%)
(73.7%)
n=4
n=11
n=5
(23.5%)
(16.9%)
(26.3%)
n=17
n=65
n=19
(16.8%)
(64.4%)
(18.8%)
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Case Study: Kate
A 3-year-old Aboriginal girl, Kate, had attended an Aboriginal preschool for a while
and was very happy but suddenly she didn‟t want to go anymore. The mother
phoned the Director to find out why and discovered that a staff member that the
child particularly liked had been moved to another room at the centre. In her
mother‟s words
“There was a dark lady there – you could tell she was Aboriginal, and Kate really
liked her but she went to another room and the new lady, Kate didn‟t take to her –
she felt more comfortable with the old staff member. She felt more comfortable
having an Aboriginal worker there.”
This mother decided to withdraw Kate from preschool. When asked about what
could be done to encourage people to use early childhood services, this mother
said that there should be as many Aboriginal staff as possible to help families and
children feel more comfortable. She felt that in the program there should be
something of Aboriginal culture – dreamtime stories, food, songs.
Case Study: Riley and Sophie
Three and a half-year-old twins, Riley and Sophie, attended preschool for 6 months
for 1 day per week to give their mother time to get things done around the house.
Riley had a mild speech delay and challenging behaviours. The parents took the
twins out of the preschool when the CCB rebate dropped with an increase in the
father‟s income and the fees became too expensive. In addition to concerns around
the fees, the parents had concerns about the care provided by the staff for the
twins. The twins‟ nappies were often left on too long leading to nappy rash.
Some of the staff also found Riley a challenge: “The staff said to me that he was the
hardest kid they‟ve ever had – the most full-on kid.” One day Riley bit another child
resulting in the parents being told that he wasn‟t welcome at the centre as long as
his difficult behavior continued. Some of the staff would get angry with Riley. One
staff person said the mother, “that child could do with a good smack sometimes.”
Staff would sometimes let Riley go outside on his own if he didn‟t want to be
involved in activities with the other children inside.
Sophie also found it hard to break into already settled groups of girls, as well as not
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wanting to sleep during the day when the staff wanted her to. The mother also did
not want Sophie to sleep because it prevented Sophie from sleeping well at night.
Sophie got into trouble for disturbing the other children when they were supposed to
be sleeping. The mother was very unhappy that the staff did not take the children‟s
normal routine into consideration. This was in spite of the fact that when the twins
started at the preschool, the parents were asked to complete a questionnaire
detailing their usual routines: “It seems as though as soon as they get there the kids
have to change to the routine of the preschool. I don‟t even think they read the
information I gave them.” The mother indicated that the only feedback they received
from the preschool staff was negative, never positive. Waiting lists at other centres
were long and so the twins did not attend another EC service. The mother, now
pregnant with a second set of twins, complained about missing that one day a week
break and felt it was no longer possible for her to get anything done around the
house.
Family factors and their relationship with service
attendance
We were surprised to find that, for our sample of participants, some of the trends we
had expected to see, based on the literature, were not supported. More specifically,
we did not find statistically significant differences in attendance based on:

Family composition (single-parent families / two-parent families / extended
families)

Area (suburban/ rural /remote)

Mother employment – It is worth noting that whilst 100% of mothers working
full time did utilize early childhood services, stay-at-home mothers were no
more or less likely to use early childhood services than mothers working parttime.

Family income and parent perception of financial well-being.
There were four family factors which were found to have a statistically significant
relationship with attendance at an early childhood service: extent of professional
involvement in the life of the family, parental perceptions of service safety, parental
concern about the informal support available to them, and congruence between
parents.
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Extent of professional involvement in the life of the family
Parents who reported high levels of professional support were more likely to have
their children enrolled in an early childhood service, t(107) = -2.822, p = ,006.
An interesting finding is that there was a significant relationship between mother
education and attendance, x2(3, N =100) = 9.50, p = .023. This relationship was in
the initially surprising direction of less educated mothers being more likely to use an
early childhood service.
Further exploration linked the above two findings. Less educated mothers were
found to have significantly more involvement with professionals (r(99) = .287, p =
.004.). An examination of the qualitative interview data lead us to interpret this
finding as reflecting the involvement of families with the Department of Human
Services and other NGOs, such as UnitingCare Burnside, and the support programs
they run. Less educated mothers were more likely to be involved with programs like
Brighter Futures that were proactive in encouraging the attendance of their children
at early childhood education setting.
Case study: Sandra
Sandra was a single mother who had three children with two different partners. She
had given up her third child for adoption eight weeks prior to the interview, at the
time of the child‟s birth. The adoption process had been very “full on” and time
consuming and required her to make many decisions about her daughter‟s welfare.
The complexity of this process was unexpected and she was finding the process
very tiring but felt supported throughout by Anglicare case-workers who coordinated the adoption process. Through her involvement with Anglicare, Sandra
had been linked in to other services in the area such as Brighter Futures, her son‟s
preschool, and Schools as Community Centres. This interaction between support
services was important to Sandra because, since her daughter‟s birth, she had to
move away from her family in order to accept an offer of government housing.
The link between involvement with human service professionals and attendance is
also evident in the finding that there was a trend towards children with disabilities
being more likely to attend an early childhood centre. Ninety-five percent of children
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with disabilities in the sample attended an early childhood centre compared to 77.5%
of children who did not have a disability. The qualitative data revealed that families of
children with disabilities were also families who experienced high levels of
professional support and input into their decision making. Both families of children
with disabilities and families who were receiving support because they had been
identified as vulnerable had been strongly advised that attendance at an early
childhood setting was important to the development of their child.
Case Study: Trent
Trent, a four and a half-year-old boy with a speech impairment and emotional
problems – “he is very angry” - attended long day care two days per week and
occasional care one day per week. His younger brother had global developmental
delay and he had a baby sister. The parents reported that all of their children are
very difficult to handle: “It‟s pretty chaotic around here most of the time.” The family
was supported by Brighter Futures who organised for Trent to attend the early
childhood services: “Essentially we go because we were told to by DOCS. The
caseworker arranged everything.” The parents were told that attendance was very
important for Trent because it would help him develop his language and social
skills, and provide him with “a lot of stimulation”.
Parental perceptions of service safety
Analysis demonstrated a statistically significant relationship between parent
perceptions of service safety and attendance, with parents who had decided not to
send their child to an early childhood setting perceiving these environments as
unsafe, x2(2, N =101) = 9.12, p = .010.
The coding of „perception of service safety‟ was essentially a coding of trust. Trust
was a dominant theme throughout the interviews as all parents wanted their children
to be with people who would protect them and in a setting in which their children
would be safe from both physical and emotional harm. Within the research literature,
the issue of trust is commonly raised in relation to Indigenous families. The research
presented here argues that this issue is every bit as salient for non-Indigenous
families.
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Qualitative data pointed to differences amongst the families in terms of how they
decided who was worthy of their trust and who wasn‟t. For some families, the key to
trust was a link to cultural communities and family/friendship networks:
“It‟s good she has an Aunty there, so she knows she‟s got family there. . . It‟s
a big trust thing!” (Karen)
Other families emphasized quality of care and establishing relationships of trust with
workers based on their perceptions of worker competence:
“I think all preschools should have more experienced and qualified staff. If
you‟ve got a child that hasn‟t got any difficulties then, great, but if you‟ve a
child that‟s a bit different, you really need special people.” (May)
“The staff know what they‟re doing. They read the children well.” (Sarah)
Another interesting finding to emerge from the interviews was parent gauging of
worker trustworthiness based on the feelings of their child. Kim, for example, worried
that “something might be going on” because her child was so unhappy and “cried
and cried and cried” every day. On this basis, Kim removed her son Harry from the
mainstream centre and decided not to engage with early childhood settings at all.
When Rachel was asked how she felt about the family day carer of her children she
said that she trusted the carer “because the girls are really happy there”.
Some families simply believed that children could never get the individual care they
require in a formal early childhood environment:
“I fear that these people can get taught to look after her but will they really
care to look after her? To them it‟s probably a very blasé thing but it‟s not to
me . . . how can they have, like, twenty children in their class and two
teachers and keep tabs on all those children and their special needs?” (Anna)
Parental concern about the informal support available to them
Our analysis found a statistically significant difference between attendance and the
parents‟ total score on how concerned they were about support available to them,
t(98) = 3.26, p = .002. Parents raised a range of concerns, from feeling that a
grandparent was too strict with their child though to feeling that even quite supportive
friends could also be very critical of their parenting.
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Interestingly, the relationship went in the direction of people who did not use early
childhood services having more concerns about their informal support networks. The
evidence does not support the hypothesis that people who were unhappy with the
support available to them would access additional forms of support. Instead it seems
that those who are unhappy with the support available to them are less likely to seek
out additional forms of support. This is possibly linked very strongly with the notion of
trust discussed above.
Congruence between parents
One of the coding items measured the extent of overall consistency and agreement
between the adults in the household. Statistical analysis found that children were
more likely to attend an early childhood service when there were higher levels of
agreement and consistency between their parents, X2(8, N =83) = 21.89, p = .005.
Whilst mothers most often identified themselves as the key decision maker on the
issue of attendance, it is clear that the views of the father played an influential role,
and that final decisions required the support of both partners.
Case study: Paul and Joanne
Paul and Joanne were the parents of two young children. Both Paul and Joanne
saw their child‟s attendance at preschool as being of very high importance.
Joanne‟s work as a long-haul flight attendant took her away for two days at a time
(a full-time schedule). Paul organized his work so that he was available to care for
the children when the mother was away, and the child attended preschool when
Joanne was not at work, giving her time to look after the baby and do household
chores. Paul was a qualified chef, however, he was not able to schedule his work
as a chef to fit in with his wife‟s working hours and he wanted to be more available
to care for the children, so he accepted a job as a storeman. “We work as a team.
We know what we want for our family.” This couple did not have much support from
Paul‟s parents and Joanne‟s parents lived overseas. They also did not get much
support from friends and so relied on each other.
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Summary: Attendance
Eighty-one of the participating families (88 children) were attending an early
childhood service at the time of interview. Twenty families (21 children) were not
attending any formal early childhood services at all. The attendance rates did not
significantly vary across suburban and rural/remote subgroups. Family cultural
background was also not found to be significant for this participant group, although
there is a hint of a trend towards Indigenous and CALD families being less likely to
attend.
The results presented here indicate that there are four family factors that are most
influential in parent decision-making around attendance. The first relates to the
involvement of the family with human service professionals, where those families
who are involved with human service professionals are most likely to attend. Parent
perceptions around the safety of the early childhood environment for both the child
and the family were also found to be key factors in their decision making around
attendance. Another influential family factor was concern about the informal support
available to the family. Families who had concerns about the informal support
available to them were less likely to seek formal support services. Finally, the
congruence between parents was a significant factor, supporting the notion that
both mothers and fathers have an influential role to play in decisions around
childcare.
Engagement
As discussed in the Chapter 4, all families were rated on a 0-3 scale of engagement,
where 0 meant no engagement at all and 1, 2 or 3 indicated low, medium or high
levels of engagement respectively.
Family factors and their relationship with service engagement
Levels of engagement were found to have a significant relationship with the following
family factors: flexibility of parent working hours, the involvement of the father,
reliance on formal sources of information, support available to the family, learning
activities at home, and parent perceptions of service safety. Please note that there
was no statistically significant relationship between engagement and family cultural
background.
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Flexibility of parent working hours
An important key to family engagement was the flexibility of the working hours of the
parents. The issue was not whether or not parents did work as no significant
difference was found between engagement and the employment status of mothers or
fathers. The issue was whether or not working parents had enough flexibility to be
able to engage. This finding was true for both mothers, F(3, 78) = 6.99, p = .00 and
fathers, F(3, 78) = 3.55, p = .018.
Family income was important only in that mothers with higher incomes were more
likely to report higher levels of flexibility in their working hours, r(82) = .395, p = .00.
Case study: Emma and Ben
Emma and Ben had four children aged between 1 year and 18 years of age. Ben
worked as a Contracts Manager in a building company and saw it as a high priority
to leave work early to collect their three-year-old son, Mark, from long day care on
the two days a week that he attended. Ben would always make sure that he read
the daily diary at the long day care service when he arrived so that he could talk
with Mark about his day on their way home. Ben knew all the staff at the service
and felt very comfortable there. He felt it was very important to have flexible working
hours so that he could pick up his son and be involved in his child care. He would
also sometimes leave work early to go home if Emma needed a break from the
children.
The involvement of the father
In keeping with above findings relating to the flexibility of the father‟s working hours
and his role in decision making, there was a significant relationship between
engagement and the involvement of the father in the child‟s life. Families with higher
levels of father involvement had higher ratings on the engagement scale, F(3, 78) =
5.24, p = .002. Also, similar to the results discussed above in relation to attendance,
a positive relationship was found between level of engagement and consistency
between the parents in decision making, F(3, 79) = 5.91, p = .001. Whilst the data of
this research would support that mothers are primarily responsible for decisions
around services and engagement activities, it is clear that the father has an
important role to play.
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Reliance on formal sources of information
There was a significant relationship between engagement and a reliance on formal
sources of information, F(3, 79) = 3.09, p = .032. This finding is linked with another
significant finding demonstrating a relationship between engagement and parent
rating of professional support, F(3, 79) = 3.69, p = .015. These results suggest that
families who are highly engaged are more likely to access information and support
from professionals, including early childhood professionals.
Informal support available to the family
There was a significant relationship between the parents‟ ranking of the informal
support available to them and their engagement with early childhood settings, F(3,
79) = 3.69, p = .015. Families who have strong informal support networks are more
likely to engage with the early childhood setting. The direction of influence is unclear
although the qualitative data suggests that the interaction is bi-directional, with early
childhood services facilitating the building of informal networks and parents with high
social capital feeling more able to engage meaningfully with other families.
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Case Study: Samantha
Samantha, a mother of four children, had very high involvement with her children‟s
long day care service. “I absolutely love this child care centre. I went here when I
was a baby. My Nan used to work here, my aunties. My aunty used to be the cook,
that‟s why I sent all my kids here, and Lyn used to be my Director as well. I love
them all, they‟re really amazing. I love this place.” Samantha‟s four-year-old twins
attended the long day care service and the mother was happy that the staff had
identified the twins‟ hearing and speech problems. Samantha received support from
her parents and in-laws and friends as well as her own grandmother. She did not
have any contact with government bodies or charities for support but relied on
informal modes of support. She had confidence in the long day care staff and liked
to be involved in the centre as much as she could with four children. The staff
provided her with information about other services in the community as well as
developmental information about her children: “Even with stuff not to do with the
child care centre they help me a lot, like, as a person, because they know my family
and my personal life and stuff.” Samantha remained committed to the service
despite the cost: “I can‟t really afford it but I put it in my budget and make myself
afford it because it‟s important.”
Learning activities at home
Families who described including home learning activities in their day-to-day routines
(such as drawing, reading together, singing songs, visiting libraries and Museums,
etc.) were more likely to be engaged with early childhood settings. The more
engaged a family was, the more home learning activities they participated in on a
regular basis, -F(3, 77) = 9.94, p = .00.
It is unclear from the quantitative data exactly how this relationship worked in terms
of direction of influence. Were families who enjoyed learning activities more likely to
engage or did families who engaged learn the importance of including home learning
activities in the daily routine? The qualitative data suggests that the influence is bidirectional and reflects an underlying value system. Families who valued learning
and education were both more likely to engage with early childhood services and
more likely to provide home learning activities. As they engaged in services, their
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repertoire of home learning activities was expanded and tailored more directly to the
strengths and weaknesses of their child.
“You have to get a good education.” (Pauline)
“They‟ve got to get ready and used to school next year. The preschool teaches
what the parents can‟t teach them.” (Josephine)
“It‟s essential – you can‟t just put them into school with no prior interaction with
other people or services or being away from me.” (Gabrielle)
“My son‟s preschool showed me how I could do measuring with him with
cooking. We do lots of cooking. Barnados give me a lot of good ideas too. They
show me activities to play with him.” (Shona)
“I spend as much time as possible at SACCs or my son‟s school and I put the
kids into all the programs and do all the courses for parents. It‟s so important.
It‟s a bit ironic since I hated school!” (Cheryl)
Perceived safety
Once again, parent perception of safety was found to be a significant construct. More
engaged parents perceived the early childhood service as safe for them and their
child, F(3, 76) = 18.86, p = .00. Once again the direction of influence is unclear and
once again the most plausible explanation is that the influence works in a bidirectional manner. People who trust settings are more likely to become engaged,
and those who are engaged have more opportunities to develop relationships and
build a stronger sense of trust.
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Summary: Engagement
The findings of this research were able to point to significant relationships between
the extent of family engagement with an early childhood service and family factors.
Flexibility of working hours for both mothers and fathers was found to be important
to engagement with early childhood settings.
The role of the father is also
highlighted within these findings as families were more likely to engage with settings
if the father was highly involved in the day-to-day activities of the child and when
there was consistency in the decision-making between parents. Families who
valued education and learning activities and who relied on formal sources of
information were also more likely to engage with early childhood settings. Families
who were engaged were also families with strong informal support networks,
suggesting that families with high levels of support are more confident in
contributing to an organization and seeking out additional support, and that early
childhood settings are potentially effective facilitators in helping families build
informal support networks. Families who were highly engaged were more likely to
view early childhood settings as safe places for their child and the family as a
whole.
Barriers and Facilitators
As part of the qualitative analysis and coding of all parent interviews, we noted and
compiled a list of any issues that families raised as being barriers or facilitators to
attendance and engagement with an early childhood service. The identified barriers
and facilitators were then examined in relation to differences depending on whether
or not families attended services, differences depending on the type of area in which
the family lived, and cultural differences. The results of our analysis for barriers to
participation are presented in Table 4, and for facilitators to participation in Table 5.
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Table 4. Barriers to participation
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CALD – Culturally and Linguistically Diverse
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Table 5. Facilitators to participation
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Summary: Barriers and Facilitators
Barriers
As a group the families identified ten barriers to participation. Five of these related
to pragmatic barriers, three were service related barriers and two were barriers
related to personal issues. Analysis demonstrated the following significant
relationships between the barriers identified by families and family variables
(attendance/area/culture):

Barriers and Attendance: Whilst cost and limited opening hours were raised as
barriers, they were only raised by families who do attend centres, suggesting
that whilst these are challenges to their participation, they were not pivotal to
the decision whether or not to participate. Families who do not attend early
childhood services were more likely to point to family values and especially their
views on the role of the mother as the primary barrier to attendance.

Barriers and Area: Families who lived in suburban areas were more likely than
rural and remote areas to identify cost, transport and family values as potential
barriers.

Barriers and Culture: Families from Non-English speaking backgrounds were
more likely than Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian families to be
concerned that attendance at an early childhood service would leave their child
vulnerable to becoming sick.
Facilitators
As a group families identified 15 facilitators to participation. Seven related to service
features, three related to staff features and five related to family features. Analysis
exploring
relationships
between
these
facilitators
and
family
variables
(attendance/area/culture) uncovered the following significant relationship.

Facilitators and Attendance: Families who were currently attending a centre
were more likely to see flexible hours, highly trained staff, good parent
relationships with staff and involvement with the Department of Human
Services as facilitators to participation. Families who do not attend were
more likely to see the co-location of the early childhood setting with a primary
school as an important facilitator.
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
Facilitators and Area: Suburban families were more likely than rural and
remote families to see flexible hours and the location of the centre close to
home as important facilitators. Rural/Remote families gave greater emphasis
to the importance of children having good relationships with early childhood
staff.

Facilitators and Culture: Families from non-English speaking background
gave emphasis to the importance of centres being close to home and long
day care centres including preschool programs (i.e., a clear educational
component). Families from non-English speaking backgrounds were least
like to see a good relationship between the child and staff members as an
important facilitator. Non-Indigenous Australian families gave emphasis to
staff being well trained as well as welcoming and pleasant. Indigenous
families gave emphasis to the importance of other families of the same
cultural group accessing the centre.
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Chapter 6: Findings from the Child Interviews
In this chapter the findings from the interviews with the 47 children who were
attending an early childhood service at the time of the research study will be
presented. The attributes of this child participant group were as follows:

Gender: 24 girls, 23 boys

Culture: 30 Non-Indigenous Australian children, 12 Indigenous children, and 5
children from CALD backgrounds

Age: 13 younger children (3 years old), 34 older children (4 or 5 years old)

Area: 18 suburban children, 29 Rural/Remote children
This chapter will discuss the findings from the child interviews in a manner in keeping
with an Ecocultural approach. The routines identified by the children will be
discussed first, followed by a discussion of the overarching emergent themes.
What happens when you arrive at preschool?
The moment of arrival is an important moment of transition for the children. All of the
children were asked directly about the activity settings that accompanied their arrival
at the early childhood service. Within the interviews, children offered a significant
amount of detail and gave considerable attention to the arrival routines. It seems that
these first moments of attendance and the hand-over from carer to child care worker
are crucial in setting the tone for the rest of the child‟s day and perhaps their
experience of early childhood settings in general.
Lockers and lunchboxes – Rituals of arrival
The rituals the children described most often revolved around the management of
their own belongings. The bag children brought with them was of particular
importance. It is an item that is theirs alone in this communal setting. It serves as
both a link to home and an opportunity for children to express their individuality. For
example, children spoke about the type of bag they owned: “Mummy bought me a
special pink bag for preschool”; “I take my Barbie bag”; “My bag has Bob the Builder
on it.” The discussion around bags was very much about what was “mine” from the
perspectives of the children, and what made it special.
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Also very important to the children was where they placed the bag upon arrival.
There was detailed discussion around hooks and lockers and how to identify where
their bag should go.
“First I put my hat away and my lunch box in the fridge and then I put my bag
in, I put the bag in the locker. I usually put it in the locker with the apple
picture but sometimes I have to put it in rainbow.” (Laura)
Harry expressed some dissatisfaction with not having his own hook for his bag. “You
just have to put your bag anywhere on a hook. . . I don‟t have my own hook. I don‟t
like putting my bag down the bottom.”
The importance of bags and where the children have to place them was particularly
highlighted in the interview with David. David had attended a preschool for a short
period of time until 6 months previous to the interview when his mother decided that
David would be happier at home. The interviewer asked David if he remembered
anything about preschool. David seemed to lack any recall of the experience until the
interviewer said “You remember preschool don‟t you? Where you used to take your
bag?” David‟s eyes lit up as he exclaimed “Oh yeah, I took my blue bag and put it on
the hook!”
Greetings from the teacher
Another interesting theme to emerge within discussions around arrival was the
importance of being individually greeted by the teacher. Sally, for example, talked of
seeking out her favourite teacher, Kylie, on arrival. She said: “I say Goodbye to my
Mum and I say Hello to Kylie. When Kylie‟s at my school, I feel OK.”
Another example to support the importance of individual acknowledgement from
teachers is found in the interview with Joel. Joel said that after he has hung up his
bag he runs to play hide and seek with the teachers. Joel does not come out of his
hiding spot until one of the teachers has found him. This child-initiated ritual was not
simply a fun game but also an effective strategy for receiving some early attention
from the teachers before he was ready to participate as a member of the larger
group.
Albert provided another example of a child who had developed his own strategy for
settling into the preschool environment and drawing the individual attention of the
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teachers. Every day he took with him in his pocket some small plastic insects. He
describes with delight his attempts to scare his teacher with a fake cockroach or
spider. Because he was not allowed to keep his own toys with him at preschool, his
mother would wait for this ritual to be complete and then take the plastic insects
home with her.
Activities of the early childhood day
Collectively the children identified eight activity settings throughout the day, as
depicted in Figure 5.
Figure 5. Activities of the Early Childhood Service Day
The following expands upon the discussion with the children around the four most
commonly mentioned activities: outside play, cleaning-up, art and craft and inside
toys.
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Summary: Arrival
The arrival routines were important to the children. Of particular importance was
the possession of a bag that expressed their interests or personality in some way.
The Identification of a special spot, such as a locker or a hook, that was there
waiting for them was also very important. This spot served as a point of connection
between the individual child and the group environment in that it held their personal
belongings and gave the children a sense of ownership of the space within a shared
environment.
Outside play
Fifty-two percent of the boys and 33% of the girls spoke about outside play. All
children who mentioned outside play viewed it in a positive light. They enjoyed the
sandpits and the bikes and the monkey bars. The children described a large variety
of outside games, such as a pirate game in which they dug for buried treasure in the
sandpit, racing games with the bikes, pretending to be riding horses and games of
soccer.
An interesting theme emerged within the context of discussion around these outside
activity settings, and that is a theme related to the importance of physical challenges
for boys. Almost all of the boys who spoke of outdoor play did so in the context of
expressing delight in physical challenges. Some male children spoke of wanting to
be the fastest on the bikes, and expressed disappointment at the fact that the bikes
were tricycles and they couldn‟t show everyone how well they could ride a twowheeler without training wheels. Some boys spoke of wanting to be the fastest
runner, or being able to dig big holes. One boy proudly reported that he could almost
go all the way across the monkey bars without falling off. The opportunity to develop
physical skills and to display physical prowess was important to the boys who
participated in this study.
This finding fits well with the work of researchers like Anita Bundy, Shirley Wyver and
colleagues (2009), who argue strongly against what they call the “bubble-wrapping of
children”. In short, they argue that over-regulation around safely has led to a
situation where children do not have the opportunity to take risks and learn from their
environments. The research presented here contributes to this argument by pointing
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out that young children themselves, particularly boys, want opportunities to explore
and take risks, to test their own strength and feel challenged in their outdoor
activities.
Cleaning-up
Twelve of the children described cleaning-up as part of the activities of the day. The
children described sweeping and putting away toys and equipment. Responses to
cleaning-up ranged from excitement at being allowed to use the broom to sweep
through to annoyance that there was so much work to do all the time.
Art and Craft
Nine (19%) of the children spoke of art and craft activities at preschool, such as
drawing, painting and making cards. Most of the children enjoyed these activities.
Abby, for example, said that she loved to paint at preschool “because I get to paint
the whole page!” When she was questioned on what she meant by this Abby
explained that when she paints at home her mother encourages her not to go to the
edge of the page because it makes a mess on the table. At preschool she can paint
right to the very edge.
Ellie proudly spoke of her painting that was hanging on the wall at preschool. She
had named this painting “Purple Poles, in the style of Jackson Pollock.”
Not all of the children enjoyed art and craft activities. Two children in particular
expressed a very strong dislike for these kinds of activities. For example, Peter said:
“I hate drawing. We draw so much it makes me angry. When I finish the
drawing I just run”.”
Inside toys
In particular, children spoke about enjoying the puzzles and particularly the toys in
the home corner.
What is interesting in looking at Figure 5 is that there is no mention of some activities
that would generally be part of the routines of early childhood settings. For example,
in none of the discussions around the activities of the day did any child mention
books or reading. We visited many of the early childhood services that the children
attended and there were certainly many books present. It is interesting that it is not
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something that the children included in their descriptions of the daily centre routines.
Feelings
To facilitate discussion with the children that moved beyond simple descriptions of
what they did during the day we used Teddy Bear Cards depicting five different
emotions: Happy, Excited, Sad, Scared, Angry (see Appendix B). Through the
course of the interview, as children spoke about the different activities they engaged
in, they were prompted to indicate which one of the bears represented how they felt
whilst they were doing that activity. Of course, through the interview children
generally indicated that they felt a range of emotions, but they were all able to
confirm to the interviewer how they “mostly” felt when they were at preschool. The
results are as follows and are depicted in Figure 6:

Mostly Happy: 16 children (34%)

Mostly Excited: 3 children (6%)

Mostly Sad: 15 children (32%)

Mostly Angry: 8 children (17%)

Mostly Scared: 5 children (11%)
Figure 6: Feelings at preschool
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Whilst it is encouraging to see that “happy” was the most frequent given response,
when we collapse together the „positive‟ (happy or excited) and „negative‟ emotions
(sad, angry or scared), most of the children felt negatively about attending an early
childhood setting, as depicted in Figure 7. Forty percent (n = 19) of children felt
positive emotions most of the time and sixty percent (n = 28) said they felt negative
emotions most of the time.
Figure 7: „Positive‟ and „Negative‟ feelings in relation to arrival
The findings were examined in relation to a range of child attributes including child
age, whether or not the family lived in a suburban or rural/remote area, culture, and
gender. We found a clear trend towards younger children (i.e., children younger than
4 years) being unhappy. For the younger children, 90% (17 of 19) said that they felt
either sad, scared or angry (with a fairly even spread in rates of response across
these 3 „feelings‟ groups). All but one of the Indigenous children indicated that they
felt negative emotions (spread between angry and sad). This was every bit as true
for children in Indigenous preschools as for children in mainstream preschools. Boys
were more likely to feel negative emotions than girls, with anger four times more
likely to be selected as their main feeling by boys than girls.
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Summary: Feelings
To summarise, whilst “happy” was the most often identified feeling, more children
felt more negatively than positively overall about their early childhood setting. It
seems that the children who are most likely to feel negatively about early childhood
services are children who are younger than 4 years old, who are Indigenous, and
who are boys.
A careful analysis has been conducted looking specifically at what the children said
in relation to how and why they feel the way that they did. All of the different issues
that were raised by the children fit within three key overlapping constructs:
„Connectedness‟, „A Special Object‟, and „Incongruence‟.
Connectedness
Attachment and relationships are very important from the perspectives of the
children. This includes feeling connected to both the adults in the early childhood
environment and the children.
Feeling connected to an adult
The children who described feeling happy at preschool were most often those who
spoke of a strong connection to one particular individual adult. For example,
Annabelle told the interviewer that she liked to going to preschool because “I go on
the bus to my little school. I have to help Norm.” Norm was the bus driver. Annabelle
explained that Norm gets off the bus and comes down the stairs of the bus to say
hello to her, then she holds Norms hand to help HIM back on to the bus (this
example
also
supports
the
importance
of
early
greeting
and
individual
acknowledgement from a key adult on arrival discussed previously). Other examples
are:
“I am happy because the teachers are always happy. I like everything about
preschool.” (Iris)
“I call the teacher Nan because she is Sam‟s Nanna. She is nice and she doesn‟t
get mad when I suck my thumb.” (Jake)
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By way of contrast, there were children who did not suggest any connection to an
adult within this environment. Some could not remember the names of any of the
teachers or other adults, and others were frightened by the teachers.
“I don‟t like anything at preschool. None of the teachers help me.” (Beth)
“I always feel sick at preschool. I feel sick „cause I get too hot but the teachers
don‟t help. I want to go home to my Mum.” (Adam)
“Sometimes the children don‟t do what my teacher says, then you get a smack.
Sometimes at my school when the teacher tells them what to do and they keep
on being bad and don‟t even listen, they‟re scared and they cry in the office.”
(Neal)
Even the children with limited language were generally able to communicate to us
when there was a strong sense of preference or connection to one particular
teacher. A marked expression of this theme came in the interview with Girra. Girra
had significant expressive language delay. As soon as the researcher asked him
about his family day care setting Girra grinned and excitedly repeated in a sing-song
voice the word “dubbadubba”. His mother explained that this is the word he used to
refer to one of the two carers in his day care setting. “Dubbadubba” was happily and
affectionately said over and over in response to most questions until the researcher
reminded Girra that he had another carer as well. At the mention of the other carer‟s
name the entire disposition of the child changed dramatically. He stopped saying
“dubbadubba” and instantly became quiet, serious and subdued, shaking his head
and taking on a facial expression of concern. When the researcher returned to the
topic of his favourite carer once again, Girra„s eyes lit up and he returned to giggling
and lovingly saying “dubbadubba”.
Feeling connected to the other children
Another clear finding was the link between being happy in the early childhood
environment and having friends. Some children spoke of having best friends and
many children drew other children in their drawings. Noah, for example, spoke of not
wanting to come home from preschool because he loved being with his friends and
he wanted to keep playing. Chloe said that she loved to play with her friends in the
home corner, and would play with different children depending on who was willing to
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play and be the baby because Chloe only ever wanted to be the Mummy. Sam said
he was only happy on the day that his friend AJ attended:
“I don‟t have any friends except AJ. I haven‟t met any more friends yet. When
AJ doesn‟t come, it feels like it‟s dark and everyone‟s asleep.” (Sam)
There were some children who spoke of feeling frightened of the other children:
“I feel sad on the inside. I just don‟t make the tears come. I cry when Matt hurts
me. He‟s a bad boy. He‟s a bully!” (Albert)
“Some of the people at my school cry when they are at school because they hate
going to school . . . they are sad so they hit people then more people are sad.”
(Cody)
“They run after me and try to get my jacket off . . . they push me down in the
middle. And it wasn‟t an accident!!” (Erin)
“Sometimes I be scared at my school „cause someone‟s going to hurt me. You
can believe when someone was biting, I was crying!” (Neal)
Some of the children who enjoyed the early childhood environment also spoke of
unkindness between children in the playground and being hurt by other children. The
difference between these children and those who were unhappy was that these
children described self-efficacious behaviour. They would, for example, talk of
standing up to “naughty children” or chasing them away.
Summary: Connectedness
The child‟s experience and feelings around participating in an early childhood
setting are strongly influenced by the relationships they have with the adults and
other children. The fostering of relationships, including respectful relationships
between carers and children, is key to the willing engagement of children within
these settings. These findings also highlight the importance of helping children to
learn skills in standing up to people who are hurting them.
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A Special Object
Whereas the Connectedness theme was about relationships and attachments to
people, this theme is about attachments to objects. Children who were happy to
engage with the setting more often mentioned strong attachments to particular
objects. For example, Paul loves to play with the toy motorbikes, Kelly looks forward
to playing with the toy horses, and Michael arrives early every day to ensure that he
is the first one to ride the green bike.
As discussed earlier, having a special bag and a special place to put it was important
to the children. There were a number of children who used the ownership of this bag
and this space as a way to keep the objects from home that were meaningful to them
close to them. For example, Neal told of secretly keeping his favourite toy car and
truck in his bag and Cayley always kept her favourite doll tucked away inside her
bag. Children were particularly delighted when their favourite toys were allowed by
the teachers to emerge from their bags and become part of the preschool setting.
For example, Mia was allowed to get her teddy out of her bag at nap time: “I have to
bring my teddy from home because is an old teddy and I love teddy. He is soft.”
On the other hand, there were children who described centre rules preventing them
from bringing important objects with them, For example Kyle had been bringing “Paw
Paw” (a toy leopard) in his bag until the teacher saw it and reminded him that toys
were not allowed at preschool. “I was angry!”Julia told a similar story:
“They said no toys. I„m sad because sometimes I need something soft to play
with. I need „Dog Dog‟ and „Dog Dog‟ is so sad because he has no-one
playing with him . . . I want to come home because I want to see „Dog Dog‟.”
(Julia)
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Summary: A Special Object
Children value attachments to special objects. The opportunity to display
preferences for particular objects within the early childhood environment can
facilitate a child‟s sense of ownership of the setting and positive feelings about
attendance. Accommodating the inclusion of objects from home that are special to
the child may also enhance the child‟s sense of comfort and security within the
setting.
Incongruence
An interesting theme to emerge is captured by the word “Incongruence.” This theme
links together stories told by the children told about how similar or different the early
childhood environment was to their home environment.
There were examples from the interviews of children talking about when the things
that were happening in the early childhood environment felt like what happened at
home:
“On my birthday I got a pink flower cake at my school. I shared my flower cake
with everybody. It was like when Mummy gave me a birthday party.” (Iris)
“I love jumping in the rain with my brother. Sometimes we jump on the trampoline
when it‟s raining. One time at preschool we played outside when it‟s raining and
we got to splash in puddles and we got a wet wet shirt, then we took our
preschool shirts off and dried them in the sun then we put them back on.”
(Cecilia)
These examples support other ideas too, like the importance of individual
acknowledgement and the importance of spontaneity and an occasional relaxing of
the usual rules, but because of the way the children framed these experiences, they
also demonstrate the joy of doing something in a more formal early childhood
environment that is usually the sort of thing that happens at home. The following
examples support the reverse situation, where the rules of the setting restrain the
child in a way that does not happen at home.
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“At home I can play with Joey [her little brother] but he is in the baby room.
Sometimes I feel sad because sometimes I don‟t want to go to school because I
want to play with Joey. I don‟t do naughty things to him.” (Milly)
“At preschool you have to wear shoes. I hate it. When I get home I take my shoes
off straight away, I can play with no shoes on.” (Adam)
“When they say I have to have a sleep I feel angry. I‟m big! I don‟t need a sleep.
Mum said I‟m a big boy now!”(Nicholas)
“The teacher says „that‟s enough, pack away now, lunchtime is over‟ but I haven‟t
finished. I‟m still hungry. Mummy lets me eat all my lunch.” (Cherie)
Summary: Incongruence
In early childhood settings, children‟s individual needs and preferences can be
subsumed by the rules of the setting and the needs of the group. The children who
routinely experienced this tension were more likely to speak of being unhappy
within the early childhood setting.
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Chapter 7: Findings from the Early Childhood
Worker Focus Groups
Eight different themes emerged in the focus groups with the early childhood workers
as they discussed what they saw as the barriers and facilitators to participation in
early childhood services for families in disadvantaged areas. These themes are
presented below and have been organised under two headings: supporting families
and supporting staff and services.
Supporting Families
Social disengagement: falling through the cracks
Workers expressed concern that there are families within their communities that are
very difficult to connect with because they do not participate in the existing formal or
informal community networks by which information is often relayed to families. For
some families, this social disengagement is as the result of being new in town and
struggling to form connections. For others, it is a choice to remain isolated from other
families and support services.
„Fromaways‟ and transient families
Particularly within rural and remote communities, the early childhood workers
expressed concern about families who move into their areas from other
communities. The workers in the remote focus group referred to these families as
„fromaways‟. One worker explained that it can take a generation or two before
families are accepted as local within the community. Many families in the rural and
remote areas are surrounded by strong extended family networks and long-standing
friendship networks. It can be very difficult for a new person to break into an existing
informal network which is where so much information sharing about the services
available for children is shared. Support from an informal network can also play an
important role in helping families to feel comfortable engaging with families (as is
supported in the findings from the parent interviews presented in Chapter 5). From
the perspectives of the early childhood workers, the challenges in connecting with
these families revolve primarily around making sure families are aware of the
services that are available within the community.
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Another concern is that sometimes the pathway to attendance involves families
being linked to early childhood services by other services they have engaged with.
Families who are new to an area do not have a history of local service engagement
and so they also miss out on information that might have come to them through
these channels.
The transience of the lifestyles of some families was also an issue raised by early
childhood workers. Sometimes families move into areas to take up housing provided
by the government, to live in caravan parks, or to take advantage of cheaper
housing. In one area, families regularly moved into the area because they wished to
live near a family member who was in the local gaol. The challenges for services in
engaging with these families are similar to those discussed above. An additional
challenge exists for services in that transience means a high turnover of children
within centres as there is frequent vacating of child placements. Unpredictable
enrolment and attendance can make it difficult to ensure that the centre functions at
capacity, an important issue for the financial security of centres.
Early childhood workers felt that the large number of „fromaways‟ and „transient
families‟ within rural and remote areas increased the necessity for services to
advertise to ensure that their centre operated at capacity:
“There are some families who are under the radar all the time, particularly in
rural areas. I don‟t know how you find them.”
Living in isolation
Connecting with some families was difficult because they had chosen to live a life of
relative isolation in that they did not have extensive social networks and did not
participate in child and family services within the community. Early childhood workers
felt that a core difficulty for these families was that they had “low life management
skills”, keeping them from participating within the community fully. Some early
childhood workers reported that they would describe more than half of the families
living in their area in this way:
“These families don‟t want to accept any help and they aren‟t comfortable
here, like they don‟t feel they have the right to be here.”
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Some of the early childhood workers stressed the importance of making contact and
getting to know families before their child arrived and started attending. They were
concerned that there are very few services for families in between giving birth and
engaging in prior-to-school services. They felt that families were generally forced to
come into contact with formal services when their child was born, even if only in
contact with a mid-wife, and that after the child was born they were able to
disengage again, making it extremely difficult for them to have an interest in
engaging with services again when the child was older. They suggested that an
important support for families would be the provision of ongoing services for all
families throughout the first few years of the child‟s life.
Some early childhood workers stressed the important role that they played in
supporting isolated families who do not have any other support from family or
friends. They described having to talk with families about how to care for their
children, and needing to pass on information to families about appropriate care such
as what babies should eat and drink.
“Families are not forthcoming with information about their children. You have
to ask when are they due for their bottle, when are they due for their sleep.
There are also concerns about what sometimes comes in bottles for babies.
We‟ve had antibiotics, tea, Coke, chocolate milk, juice, cordial, powdered milk.
Some families send their kids in wet clothes or with nappies that haven‟t been
changed for a while. ”
The workers from one centre spoke of isolated families as having “poor interpersonal
skills, low literacy levels, low energy levels and a lack of available time”, all factors
that make it difficult for them to engage with the service and the other families who
attend. Staff from one particular regional service said that their early childhood
service was the only service in the area that actively sought to enrol children from
disadvantaged backgrounds:
“Some services find these types of clients too difficult, they‟re just too hard.
Some services say that they don‟t have people like that in their town. I think,
„You‟re dreaming. Yes, you do‟. They just don‟t know about them.”
The support role that early childhood workers described when they are engaging
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with isolated families often included supporting families in accessing intervention for
children with special needs. Encouraging families to make an appointment and talk
with an intervention specialist was described as “extremely difficult”. Staff reported
having to organise appointments for the children and, whenever possible, workers
sought to have assessments carried out at the centre. However, it was not always
easy or possible to have assessments conducted on site.
“You can have a six months‟ waiting list at support services. By that time,
parents forget about it, so if the kids get seen here at the centre, then it‟s
done. We get the reports back quickly.”
“We find it hard to get them in, because Community Health is stretched. They
don‟t have time to come to us. But we‟d love it if they could come on a regular
basis. It‟s very difficult to access speech therapists in a rural area. There must
be 80% of the children who have speech delays, disorders. I just don‟t
understand why there‟s not more emphasis on speech therapy. There‟s an
emphasis on needing more teachers going through uni but we need more
„Speechies‟. We can‟t even find a speech pathologist to employ for one day a
week in our service.”
The participating early childhood staff were also concerned that children from
isolated families were not getting other health care needs met such as dental care:
“These children are in pain. They‟re experiencing pain because their teeth are
rotten. They‟re not going to think about anything else, because they‟re not
well. Their bodies aren‟t well.”
Early childhood workers in disadvantaged communities felt that they had an
important role to play in supporting all aspects of family life. Some of the workers
described strategies that had been implemented within their centres to improve the
engagement of isolated families in need of additional support, including information
sessions or one-on-one meetings with parents to explain why early childhood
education is important, and parent workshops on general life management skills
such as budgeting and good parenting practices:
“At our service it‟s not just early childhood education. We look at it more
holistically. We run health programs for parents.”
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“The difference that our parenting programs make to these children‟s lives is
enormous. The parents‟ attitudes to their own children has improved
dramatically. The programs are making a wonderful difference in the lives of
these people. If this is only one small step in their life that they remember –
„‟there is another way of living. I was valued as a person and during that time
there were people there who cared for me and showed me a different way of
living‟ - then that‟s got to be a plus. You can‟t take them out of their home
environments but you can help educate the parents, and educate the children
that there are different ways. That‟s one of the things that drive us on each
day.”
Workers in one centre said that if they could make one recommendation that would
facilitate the engagement of parents, it would be for each community to have an
“early childhood liaison officer” who was able to go to families‟ homes and help
families with all the tasks associated with access – researching the different services
available, completing the documentation, organisation of transport, getting a lunch
box, support with arriving at the early childhood service on the child‟s first day, etc.
Building relationships
The participating early childhood workers saw the building of good relationships with
parents as essential to meaningful family engagement. They identified two important
elements in the building of these relationships: a strengths-based approach and
allowing time for the establishment of trust.
A strengths-based approach
Some of the participating early childhood workers emphasized the importance of a
strengths-based approach. These workers felt that a meaningful relationship could
only be established between a worker and a family if workers were willing to withhold
their judgment and look for the strengths that families had:
“I think that a lot of people in early childhood services need to be aware that
no matter what background people come from, they have something to offer.
A lot of people underestimate people from disadvantaged backgrounds. In a
lot of cases staff are ignorant to what people have to offer. Unless you have a
relationship with that family, you‟ll never know what they have to offer.”
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One worker spoke about building relationships with indigenous families and made
the point that for all families, the building of a positive relationship does not need to
be seen as a complicated process. It‟s as simple as always treating families with
respect.
“Families will decide whether they can trust you or not and how much they
want to tell you. But that may take years. It comes back to the interpersonal
skills of that staff person and how skilled up they are in working with
indigenous families. People think it‟s rocket science. I don‟t think I‟m an alien!
I don‟t think I‟ve come from another planet. I‟m just asking for basic human
rights - basic respect!”
Building trust
The early childhood workers reported that it could take many months to develop a
relationship of trust with families. Workers acknowledged that some families may
have valid reasons for being distrustful of them, such as fear of being reported to
Community Services or coming with a range of very negative experiences with
services in the past. Overcoming these obstacles to the point where families will
genuinely trust workers may take time.
“We need time, because they need time so that they build up trust with us.
We‟re not trained in the area that they need help in, such as counselling,
psychology, let alone drug and alcohol. Time is a really big thing, because as
Director you‟re on the floor as well. ”
The workers reported developing strategies aimed at helping them to develop
trusting relationships with the families who attend their centre. Strategies included
inviting parents to parent nights and events at the preschool where the children
perform and display their work. Staff also spoke of inviting parents to come into the
centre to share particular skills that they have with the children. In relation to
Indigenous families in particular, Indigenous early childhood workers stressed the
importance of services connecting with local Indigenous communities as a means of
facilitating the building of trust and helping an Indigenous parent feel that the service
is a safe place for them.
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Building trusting relationships with families from CALD backgrounds was also
identified as challenging primarily because of the language barriers. One service was
concerned about how “alone and lost” the refugee families were who attended their
centre, and so they began providing out-of-hours support for these families to help
them complete government forms and to provide information about other community
services. In addition, this centre volunteered to be part of a local program in which
CALD families could do volunteer work to help them eventually secure paid
employment.
The centres varied considerably in their efforts to build relationships with families.
Some services, such as those highlighted above, gave significant effort to supporting
families and building trusting relationships whilst others did not describe any effort to
work towards building positive relationships with parents:
“You get tired of having to remind people to pay fees and sick of dealing with
parents who can‟t even get their kids dressed properly in the morning or get a
lunch into their bag. Dealing with the parents is harder than dealing with the
kids.”
Complex Family Challenges
Extending on the issues raised in relation to isolated families, workers in
disadvantaged areas were concerned that they were often playing roles they were
not trained to play for families, essentially as case managers. Many families had very
complex problems and did not feel that they had anywhere else to turn for support.
“At the coal face”
Early childhood workers reported that there was a high prevalence of health
problems for families in their areas such as mental health issues, substance abuse,
domestic abuse, speech delays, vision problems, behavioural problems, dental
neglect and suicide. These health difficulties for parents and children could be
significant barriers to participation.
“Some of them can‟t even get out of bed in the morning. If you‟re really
depressed or living with someone who beats you, have a drug problem, are
you going to be able to get up, and think „I have to get the kids ready for nine
o‟clock‟, and pack the lunches, and off you go. You‟re not going to be able to
do it!”
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Early childhood workers reported that a considerable amount of their time is given to
assisting families to access the support services they need. It was suggested that
the job of the early childhood worker in disadvantaged areas is much bigger than
their direct work with the children in their care. They speak of their role in assisting
families as being very complex and creating stress for the staff:
“There‟s just so much involved, and every day is different. We‟ve got to be
very flexible. We‟re case managers but we‟re not recognised for it. That‟s part
and parcel of the job.”
“You just face so much. No two days are the same, ever, here. There‟s
always a different drama, you name it - you see it, you hear it. It‟s difficult.”
For the remote service in particular, the staff reported very few additional support
services available for parents and children with additional needs, often requiring
families to travel long distances (sometimes as far as two or three hours away) to
access services. When workers in all of the areas had not been successful in linking
families to other services for whatever reason, workers felt that they had no choice
but to provide the extra support the family needed. This included trying to provide
intervention programs for children who had limited contact with intervention
specialists (either because of distance, waiting lists or parent reluctance to engage).
This kind of intensive support in areas beyond where early childhood staff felt
competent was seen as causing significant stress and staff burnout:
“We are at the coalface and need to deal with the children throwing chairs,
throwing toys across the room, and the pure anger that they get in their little
faces which gets expressed in difficult behaviour. Sometimes you need a
breather and support. Difficult behaviour can sometimes be worse than a child
that has Asperger‟s or autism, or an intellectual disability, all of which you can
get funding for.”
“We could really use a psychologist on-site every day. There‟s that level of
dysfunction in the families.”
“One child had made a bus with seats and was role playing that he was riding
the bus to the methadone unit. „Where are you riding the bus to?‟ „The
methadone unit, so that mum can get her methadone.‟ ”
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Inadequate or no intervention for children in the early years was seen as leaving
children at risk of more serious problems and being misunderstood:
“The parents are told there is no available treatment for their child for 12
months. Then they go under the radar. Then the child gets to school, they
can‟t cope, they get behaviours, they go on to ADD, they get put on to Ritalin,
and they‟re labelled. Maybe they just had a hearing problem, maybe they
needed help with their speech and couldn‟t communicate, showing their anger
in bad behaviour.”
Early childhood workers were attempting to support families through a maze of
complex problems. One centre spoke about the difficulties associated with overcrowded housing. The workers saw this as a problem because they believed overcrowded living contributed to a sense of chaos within families and was contrary to
the orderly and secure life they saw as optimal for child development and service
participation:
“There are very high numbers of people living in houses. There is one of our
families where there are eight children and five adults living in a three
bedroom home. That‟s not that uncommon. It could be grandma‟s house and
there could be older children who have children, and the mother will then still
have little children. A grandmother came to playgroup who had three children
with her and she‟s just had her niece move in with her and she has six
children. They‟re only the people I know of in the house. There may be more.”
Early childhood workers also spoke of strategies intended to facilitate the
engagement of parents with low literacy levels, such as simplifying information in
newsletters, providing all information verbally, and assisting families in completing
documents:
“Sometimes too much information for people can be overwhelming. Whenever
I do notices or newsletters, I do them with not too much information in them
because you can always talk with people about the information. You‟re never
too sure of people‟s literacy levels. The best way to do it is to chat, and then
people will understand better and they‟ll feel comfortable rather than giving
them information to read because it doesn‟t mean they‟re going to understand
it.”
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For these workers, being an early childhood worker in a disadvantaged area meant
having to constantly evaluate their practices and procedures to take into account the
complex needs of the families they were working with.
Accessibility
Access issues such as transport and cost were prevalent themes within the early
childhood worker focus groups.
Transport
Transport to early childhood services was reported as an issue for families in all but
three of the focus groups. Workers reported that most families in their areas either
did not have access to a car at all or the family had only one car and it was needed
by the father to get to work. The same early childhood workers also reported that in
their areas, public transport was poor and it was not unusual for families to need to
change buses two or three times on route to the early childhood service:
“If you‟re a family with mental health issues, and four children, and no money,
you‟ve got to be fairly committed to do that and some families just won‟t do
that. Just catching a bus with two children, and a pram, and a bag – it‟s hard
work.”
Workers also pointed out that the cost of public transport was prohibitive for many
families and a lot of families resorted to walking long distances to the early childhood
service. An added issue discussed in relation to transport was that most early
childhood services do not offer flexible starting times and so if families were held up
because buses were late, they simply would not bring their child in to attend on that
day. To overcome this problem, one regional early childhood service reported that
they offered flexible start times for children to enable their families to bring the
children at a time that suited them:
“They come when they‟re ready. If they come at ten thirty, they come at ten
thirty! At least they get there.”
Some of the Indigenous workers interviewed described bus services provided by the
centre where a bus would come to collect children and drop them home at the end of
the day. In one area, Community Services provided transport for some families to the
early childhood service. Overall, workers saw buses as a great asset because they
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removed the transport problem. A small number of workers saw that, whilst a bus
was positive in eliminating transport difficulties, it could also serve as a barrier to
family engagement because not having to pick-up and drop children off limited
opportunities for parents to build relationships with staff and other families. One early
childhood service had addressed this by ensuring that a teaching staff member was
always on the bus run and they saw that this provided an opportunity for connection
between the staff and the parents.
Workers from one Indigenous early childhood centre reported their belief that if their
service did not have a bus for the children, “half our children would be gone‟. An
Indigenous worker from a different centre had quite a different view:
“We want to empower our people. We don‟t want them to be dependent all
the time. So we give them skills about car-pooling. We look at the barriers and
see how they can be broken down.”
The co-location of early childhood services with other services to which families
travel on a regular basis, such as primary schools, was seen as another potential
solution to the issue of transport. If schools and early childhood centres were colocated, at least parents would need to get all of their children to only one location.
One of the suburban early childhood centres suggested that the provision of a
regular and affordable mobile early childhood service for families would also
contribute to greater participation of families in areas where transport was an issue.
Cost
The cost of early childhood services was raised in the majority of focus group
interviews. Most of the workers were aware that the cost of participation was high but
felt that the expenses associated with running an early childhood service meant that
fees were non-negotiable and were already as low as they could possibly be.
“Most mothers don‟t work, about eighty-five percent, and some of them have
big families. For example, we have one family that has eight children.”
Workers from the remote service relayed stories to demonstrate that they knew of
mothers who were working only to pay for the childcare fees. Early childhood staff
generally saw the issue of cost for families as one of the major, if not the major,
issue for families and their decision making about participation in early childhood
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services. Some of the services had developed strategies to help families, such as
negotiating with families to pay late fees off in small amounts over a long period of
time (e.g., a few dollars per week) so that they could continue participating in the
service:
“In the more mainstream services, parents can‟t afford to access them. One of
our services doesn‟t cost anything because it‟s within a department and
another service is cheap because we‟ve made it that way. They are
extraordinary services. Unless DOCS finds another way to fund these type of
families, I don‟t know that in the long term we‟ll be able to keep our cheap
service going because we can‟t allow it to bleed our other service dry. If the
government is really serious about addressing disadvantaged children, we‟ve
got to find a better way to fund services so that they can afford to take them
on and they can afford to fund the support staff that they need.”
Supporting Indigenous families
The five participating indigenous early childhood workers raised issues that they saw
as particularly relevant to providing a service for indigenous families and children,
including the provision of culturally appropriate programs and community
consultation. The key message was one of respect. Workers also spoke at length
about the importance of supporting indigenous people who were training to become
early childhood professionals.
„It‟s not rocket science‟
Indigenous early childhood workers stressed the importance of culturally appropriate
programs. They described these programs as activities incorporating indigenous
music, instruments, literature, art and food, on a regular basis, not just as one-off
special events. However, they acknowledged that there was a shortage of
indigenous resources available to buy and they would like to see an expansion in the
resources available:
“At rest time sometimes we have the cultural music on, just for relaxation. So
it‟s implemented into the program in lots of different ways. Families really like
music in the program.”
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Some centres had local Indigenous people come in to work with the children on
learning some of the local Indigenous language. All of the workers felt that nonIndigenous workers should be required as part of their training to complete courses
in cultural tolerance and understanding. These workers also emphasised the
importance of workers engaging with local communities and seeking to understand
local Indigenous culture.
One of the workers described a parent program run at her centre in which parents
could come and learn from a local elder about the local Indigenous culture. Despite
being Indigenous themselves, many of the parents had been raised in a time when
their culture was not acknowledged or taught, and they have found a renewed
interest in their own cultural heritage as they have seen their children learning about
their Indigenous culture at preschool. One worker spoke about parents learning
words from “their language” for the first time from their young children.
Another early childhood worker raised the interesting issue of “an inverted snobbery”
on the part of some Indigenous families who are doing their best to separate
themselves from the stereotypes so often applied to Indigenous people. These
families strongly resisted attending Indigenous early childhood centres because they
did not want other non-Indigenous people within the community to think that they had
sent their child to a centre that was somehow “second rate”. They were aware that
some would label anything that was seen as Indigenous as “second rate”. The efforts
of the local Indigenous preschool to address the needs of Indigenous families, such
as not having a uniform, allowing children to come without shoes and not having a
preschool back pack, were judged by others (including some Indigenous families) as
indicators that this was not a “proper preschool”. Combating stereotypes and
inflexible ideas on what is and is not education was seen as an important step for
this worker in facilitating family engagement and improving important collaborations
across services.
The key message from the participating indigenous early childhood workers was that
all of the complexities of engaging with indigenous families could be managed if
families were approached with true respect and in a spirit of genuine consultation.
This is not to belittle the challenges that exist, just to say that it all needs to start with
the simple principle of respect.
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“How do we help? It‟s simple. By going back to community and asking what
are the barriers….unless you go back and ask, you don‟t really know.”
Supporting teachers-in-training
The participating early childhood workers expressed concern about how indigenous
people studying to be early childhood teachers were treated during the course of
their training. In particular they were concerned about students who were sent to
mainstream centres where there were no other indigenous staff for the practical
components of these courses. One worker in particular spoke at length about her
own experiences as a pre-service teacher, and being called „girl‟ and asked to do
photocopying or clean up after the children the whole time. Others agreed that they
had experienced racism during their training and relayed stories in which young
women in particular were so distressed by this treatment that they decided not to
pursue their training. It is unclear how widespread an issue this is, but it was
certainly an important theme within the indigenous worker interviews. It links strongly
to notions of the barriers and facilitators to families because of the belief expressed
by the indigenous participants that Indigenous children and families are likely to feel
more comfortable in centres where there are Indigenous staff.
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Summary: Supporting families
The early childhood workers spoke of the complex range of problems that confront
many families who live in disadvantaged areas, including problems with social
engagement, housing, literacy and other special needs. These complex problems
often stand in the way of family engagement. In addition workers were concerned
that their role in working with these families often felt more like a case-manager
role, and their lack of confidence in fulfilling this role which they had not been
trained for was leading to stress and burn-out for many.
Workers also pointed to pragmatic barriers to participation for families, such as
transport difficulties and the often prohibitive cost of service attendance.
In discussing the needs of Indigenous families in particular, workers emphasised
respect, including aspects of local Indigenous culture in daily centre routines, and
community consultation. The importance of the employment of Indigenous staff to
the engagement of Indigenous families was also raised, and workers expressed
concerns about the racism that Indigenous trainee teachers experienced,
sometimes leading them to discontinue their training.
Supporting Staff and Services
Service quality
The workers were committed to maintaining high levels of service quality however
they felt challenged in being able to do this because of the pressures on them to
provide intensive support to vulnerable families and children. This was because of
the pragmatic difficulties associated with providing professional development and
because of compromises that had to be made due to inadequate funding.
Maintaining morale and professionalism
As discussed earlier in this chapter, early childhood workers were concerned about
the potential for staff burnout if they continued to be stretched to fill so many different
roles for families. Nonetheless, it was clear within the focus groups that many
workers felt a strong commitment to their job and were able to maintain a level of
morale to continue on. Workers stressed the importance of staff within centres
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supporting each other and maintaining a shared vision of the opportunity workers
have to make a difference in the lives of children:
“Considering the trauma, the burnout, the stress ... Everyone‟s got a passion
for it, because you know what you deal with every day. It‟s hard to leave - I‟ve
tried. You know that we‟re a really important part of the children‟s lives, and a
really consistent part of their lives, so it makes it worthwhile because you
know that it makes a difference.”
Early childhood service providers in regional and remote areas were particularly
concerned that the quality of their service may be compromised because of the
challenges associated with providing professional development for the staff. These
services found that there were very few opportunities to attend training seminars in
regional and remote areas and it was impossible to send their staff away for training
because of the cost involved and the necessity of maintaining adequate staff-to-child
ratios. Rural and remote services also spoke of the difficulties associated with
replacing staff if staff were absent or unwell due to having a very limited pool of
casual staff to call on.
The importance of adequate funding to service quality
The participating early childhood workers were conscious that if their service was not
of high quality, they would not be able to attract families. They expressed frustration
that they felt forced to compromise the quality of their service because of inadequate
funding.
The regional indigenous workers in particular expressed frustration in
relation to this issue. They said that they found it difficult to maintain adequate staff
numbers when the running costs of the centres increased annually, and government
funding did not increase commensurately. They explained that the ability of staff to
address the poor literacy and numeracy levels of the children in the service is
severely compromised when staff numbers are at a minimum and those who are
employed are employed at low salary rates.
“It all comes down to funding.”
An additional cost faced by some of the indigenous centres was the cost of the bus
service to get children to and from the centre.
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Administrative red tape
The workers pointed out that extensive time was required to complete the
administrative tasks related to the enrolment of children as well as requesting
funding for children with special needs. In relation to children with special needs in
particular, workers were already needing to give considerable amounts of their time
and energy to the support of individual children‟s learning. Adding to that the
completion of demanding funding applications, they felt, left even less time for the
other children in the room. Workers felt that the burdens of administration were
compromising the quality of care they were able to provide to the children as a
whole.
In addition to their own administrative tasks, workers reported needing to provide
extensive support to families as they completed the documentation required for
enrolment. The complexity of the administrative tasks was seen by the workers as a
barrier for families to participation in early childhood services.
Integrated service provision
A third of the workers who participated in the focus groups raised the issue of the
potential benefits of an integrated service model for disadvantaged families. They
saw this model of service delivery as the most effective way to meet the needs of
families. They gave particular emphasis to the importance of cross-disciplinary
collaboration between early childhood educators and allied health professionals
(e.g.,
audiologists,
speech
therapists,
optometrists,
psychologists),
medical
professionals (e.g., ear, nose and throat specialists), English language teachers and
social service professionals who could offer financial counselling and assist families
with their housing needs, etc. Workers also felt that an integrated service would have
more scope for providing health education and parenting programs for the families:
“Wouldn‟t that be wonderful? - a building where everything is interconnected.
A one-stop shop.”
The workers felt that an integrated service would relieve early childhood workers
from having to act as counsellors and play a key role in guiding families to
appropriate support services. One indigenous early childhood worker felt that
indigenous families would be particularly receptive to this because it might reduce
the need for families to become involved with “welfare offices”.
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Summary: Supporting staff and services
The early childhood workers spoke of the importance of maintaining morale
amongst the staff because so many were feeling over-burdened and were at risk of
burning out. Another important issue that was raised related to the challenges in
providing adequate professional development, particularly in rural and remote
locations. This was a challenging aspect because service quality depended on
ongoing professional development and the updating of skills, and yet funding,
distance, and pragmatic constraints such as the need to maintain an appropriate
staff to child ratio made this impossible.
The issue of funding was a significant theme within the interviews. Workers were
frustrated that funding seemed to be continuously cut whilst expenses rose. They
are working with disadvantaged families and cannot make up the shortfall by raising
the fees as centres in other areas might be able to do. The administrative burden
associated with funding was also very frustrating for workers. This was never more
frustrating than when they were needing to request additional funding for a child
with special needs.
Some of the early childhood workers supported the notion of an integrated service
model as the best way to support families and staff, particularly if it paved the way
for
meaningful
cross-disciplinary
collaboration
between
educators,
professionals and social service professionals.
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health
Chapter 8: Discussion and Conclusion
The findings of this research contribute to our understanding of the barriers and
facilitators to participation in early childhood services for families living in
disadvantaged areas. This research looked beyond correlations between attendance
and family characteristics to understand engagement and the processes of decision
making for families. It also approached these issues from the perspectives of
families, early childhood workers and children. Together the voices of these
stakeholders came together to deliver some clear messages.
A range of potential pragmatic barriers to participation, such as cost and transport,
were raised as important issues by parents and workers. Early childhood workers
perhaps gave the strongest focus to these issues as they were concerned with
getting children to the service each day and ensuring that fees were paid to maintain
the viability of the centres. It was interesting that pragmatic challenges like cost and
transport difficulties and the hours of centre opening were raised also by families but
only by those families who were currently attending an early childhood service.
Families who were not engaging with an early childhood service at the time of this
research did not raise these issues at all.
When it came to decision making about whether or not to engage, the primary issues
for non-attending families were around whether or not participation fitted with their
beliefs and value systems. Families who believed that young children should remain
in the full-time care of their mothers did not engage in services regardless of any
initiatives to subsidise centre fees. Families who did not see that early childhood
services provided valuable education or who thought that a child‟s education should
begin when they started school did not engage despite initiatives to extend hours
and provide buses for transport. These kinds of initiatives are invaluable in
maintaining the involvement and attendance of children who do attend and are
crucial to engagement of families, however the findings of this research suggest that
these initiatives do not influence the decisions of families who would not otherwise
attend.
Care must be taken to ensure that initiatives aimed to improve attendance do not
happen at the cost of family engagement. For example, whilst buses to collect and
drop-off children may increase the attendance rates, they also potentially create a
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situation in which families never get to know more than one or two staff members if
they go on the bus runs, never meet other families or the children‟s friends and never
see what happens in the centre. There was one indigenous mother in this research
who used the bus service to accompany her child on the first day and had never
entered the service again since. She did not know any teachers‟ names, had never
attended an event, and was not aware of anything that happened for her children
during the day except that she knew that they brought art work home with them. This
is not to say that buses are a bad idea, just that if these kinds of strategies are
adopted it is important not to lose sight of the fact that early childhood engagement is
not only good for children, but also good for families. A family-centred approach is
essential to good practice in early childhood settings and early childhood staff are
well positioned to link families with other child and family support services.
This research supports the importance of early childhood settings being places
where families feel safe. The building of relationships and the inclusion of families in
the day-to-day activities of centres are important for strengthening families and
building trust. Whereas the majority of research within the early childhood field
focuses on mothers, this research points to the important role that fathers play in
decision making and in facilitating family engagement. The importance of
congruence between the parents was highlighted within the findings from the family
interviews. Whilst the centre staff did not focus on fathers, they did talk of “chaos”
and “low life management” within families that prevented participation in their
services. It is possible that congruence between the parents is one indicator of the
extent of family “chaos”. It is clear that cohesive families with cohesive social
networks are far more likely to engage with services than families who do not
experience cohesion in their lives. Early childhood workers saw that the widespread
embracing of an integrated service model to facilitate collaboration between
education, health and social service professionals was potentially very important to
help families build a stronger sense of life cohesion and to facilitate engagement.
Whilst there are non-government organisations and large government initiatives
currently working towards this practice model (including the „Brighter Futures‟
program) these initiatives generally support only families who have been identified as
„at risk‟. The universal delivery of integrated service was advocated by the workers in
this study.
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Often overlooked in discussions of family decision-making is the role that children
play. Families were concerned about how happy their children were, and there were
families in this study who withdrew their children from services primarily because
they felt that their children were not happy there. The majority of children who
participated in this research indicated that most of their emotions when they were at
an early childhood centre were negative. The children valued acknowledgement.
They wanted to know that they were welcome, that there was a place there for them,
that the things that were important to them were also welcome in the centre, that
they had staff members and friends who genuinely cared about them. The interviews
with the children offer a lot for us to think about, particularly in relation to how
workers might better develop meaningful connections with children. Children must be
viewed as important stakeholders within these settings and not just the focus of
adult-driven programs and interventions.
Particularly in regional and remote areas, staff in centres were reporting that they
were providing a lot of support for families themselves in assisting families to access
other support services. The workers felt that they were not equipped to undertake
these roles that extended beyond their expertise in early childhood education. This
report highlights a need for pre-service and in-service education to develop family
support skills and knowledge in early childhood staff so they can deal effectively in
tackling the issues faced by families engaged in their services. While it is unrealistic
to give early childhood staff training in social work as well as early childhood
education, it should be possible to teach them some skills in family support and
referral skills, as well as more knowledge about what other services can provide. As
several staff noted, the one-stop shop model of integrated family and child services
would be an ideal model that would allow early childhood staff to focus on education
of the children and liaise with health and welfare staff on the other issues facing
families.
This report contains some concerning findings. One is the level of unhappiness
expressed by the majority of children attending services. Children were saying that
they would prefer to be at home unless centres made them feel welcome and special
and unless the centres made an effort to relax the rules and make the setting appear
more like home. Early childhood professionals have much to learn from the
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comments of the children in this study. These comments translate into a range of
practical changes that could make children feel more positive about attending child
care. Another concerning finding is that some early childhood workers seem to be
very judgmental of families and unwilling to look beyond how the families do not
comply with the rules of the centre or fail to prepare their children for the centre in a
way that the workers expect. This contrasts with other workers who take a strengthsbased approach with families and who work with them with an understanding of the
obstacles that they face. There is a clear need here for professional development of
the early childhood workforce to help them understand issues for disadvantaged
families.
The final concerning issue is that it seems that some disadvantaged families would
not consider enrolling their child in early childhood services under any circumstances
because of their values and beliefs and their own experiences with the education
system. This lack of engagement appears to extend to low engagement with other
families and other services. The result is that many children from disadvantaged
families can be socially isolated within their families and do not have the advantages
of the socialisation with other children and the early educational experiences that
early childhood services provide. These are the hard-to-reach families that challenge
many social agencies. This report does highlight however that a key factor is that
early childhood services need to be seen as safe for children, to be trusted by
families. The report suggests ways in which centres can move towards this and a big
factor is ensuring that children have a positive experience there. Parents need to
know that their children are happy and the children in this report give us some ideas
about what would make a difference for their emotional state when they are in an
early childhood service.
The overarching message of this research is the importance of respect and
consultation: respect for the views of children and the importance of understanding
how they experience their involvement in early childhood centres; respect for the
values of parents and the importance of understanding the challenges that they face
to guide a family-centred approach to practice in early childhood services; and
respect for the demands on early childhood workers and consultation with them in
the revision of administrative requirements and funding formulas as well as in
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planning for family support. This report has made clear that early childhood services
can play a crucial role not only in child education but in family support and attention
to both are needed when considering the participation and engagement of
disadvantaged families.
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Appendix A
Ethics Approval
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Children and Families Research Centre | Barriers to Participation |
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Appendix B
Angry
Scared
Sad
Happy
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Excited
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Balaclava Road, North Ryde, Sydney, Australia
Telephone (02) 9850 9882, Facsimile (02) 9850 9887
Macquarie University CRICOS Provider Number 00002J
www.mq.edu.au
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