Child Care In Poor Communities: Head Start Centers

Daycare has become a controversy because of the great quantity of advantages and disadvantages that it involves. While a very large number of parents have to rely on child care centers because of career ambitions or financial needs that only their jobs can fulfill, most child psychiatrists believe that the ideal growing environment for an infant is at home with the family. The problem is that choosing the right caregiver, a good substitute for the parents, is very hard, and the consequences of a wrong decision can be very detrimental to the child’s personality development. This choice depends on many factors like culture, education and especially income. In fact, the financial availability plays the most

What seemed to have sparked interest in this topic were the inconsistent findings on the issue of social outcomes. Although it has been found that children who attended childcare programs appeared to be more socially competent than home-reared peers, displays of aggression and resistance to adult requests were also described among childcare children (Haskins et al., 1985, as cited in Phillips et al., 1987). Phillips, McCartney and Scarr (1987) believed that these contradictory findings differed due to the quality of the childcare programs.

Recently child day-care centers have become an important part in every families life. The families in the U.S. support the need to have child daycare centers for working parents because they understand the situation and problems they face as parents. Therefore, the questions in this research paper are should the government provide daycare centers for working parents in the U.S.? what are the benefits from child day-care centers?. These questions caused a huge argument between people. Adding to that it contains the advantages and disadvantages of leaving children in daycare centers. The research also presents the some examples about the implementing daycare centers around the U.S. Moreover, it explains the importance of child daycare centers to obtain of the education.

Although the Head Start program focuses on preparing the children for school it does offer outreach and training activities to assist parents with understanding their child’s development and their overall parenting skills (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2001). Parental needs are met when parents receive classes or workshops that educate them on their child’s development allowing parents to create activities for their child at home as well as when they are in Head Start (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2002).

Families have many choices for childcare, ranging from in-home care, a childcare facility, an after school program or a

Furthermore, it will analyze current literature reviews on positive impacts on the families by increasing the subsidized childcare centres at a low cost to encourage more participation of mothers in the labour force. Ultimately resulted in the economic growth and reduced poverty rate. Few fundamental concerns will be addressed over the universal childcare program, including lack of regulated childcare spaces as a result of an excessive number of children. Moreover, possible negative impacts on children’s development when increased in time span away from parents. Lastly, discuss possible actions that government might take in order to resolve the issues as policy

While daycare/ childcare centers provide a safe haven for young children and left in the care of licensed caregivers, there is more to daycare then just temporary relief for parents. These facilities offer a nurturing and fun learning environment to promote curiosity, innovation, and continuous growth in developmental abilities and positivity in children, and they also have the ability to provide encouraging and engaging activities that endorse emotional, social, and academic development (Phillips 1987). Within these facilities, high quality care calls for each child reach greater levels of learning and can develop skills at their own pace under supervision.

Families' reliance on childcare has risen significantly over the past 30 years. In 1993, 9.9 million children under age 5, needed care while their mothers worked (Bureau of the Census, 1995). More than two-thirds of all infants receive nonparental child care during their first year of life, with most enrolled for about 30 hours each week (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 1995).

Children dont have to go to a legit child care facility to get an early education. Early childhood education comes in many forms most of the learning starts at home. “Playing with your child helps keep your child engaged in the kind of play where learning occurs. Your interest, questions, and comments as you play alongside will help your child use toys productively,”(How to Support Children’s Approaches to Learning?). In saying that children learn best through play based experiences they learn from things they experience or items they can touch and hold. Children learn from the comments thier parents give, they pick up on the little things. Children who don’t participate in some type of quality education programs are 50 percent more likely to be placed in special education. Children are also 25 percent more like to dropout of school and are 60 percent more likely to never attend college. 40 percent are more likely to become teen parents ,and finally 70 percent more likely to become a teen parent.

Clients and Client Issues The clients served by The Ontario Early Years Centre include parents, relatives, nannies, and their children who range from birth to six years of age. A significant amount of parents attending this Centre’s programs, whose children range from 12 months – 3 ½ years old, generally do not enrol their children in a daycare facility due to its expensive nature. The fact that daycare services are too costly for some families to register their children relates to the one of the social determinants of health known as a social safety net. This social determinant implies that daycare services are not well funded by the Canadian government, which consequently increases the facility’s price.

Early childcare education and afterschool services is a long-term investment. Between bills, saving for college, and high healthcare costs, childcare cost one of those things that turns out to be very expensive but also a necessity. Parents of children in grades K-8 should be able to, afford childcare costs without government assistance and without going into debt themselves. But being able to afford childcare is only half the battle. Just because a parent or a guardian can afford childcare doesn’t mean its quality childcare. Parents must be able trust the caregiver in hopes that they are leaving their children in a safe environment and that their money is being

Although our textbook discusses the issue of continuity between home and program in both aspects; pros and cons, but I feel that when looked at from a cultural point of view, this factor can be very vital in early childcare. In my opinion, in infancy and through toddler years children need to be in more familiar environments especially if they come from a culture that is minority. When children see adults who are from the same culture, speak the same language and have values that are similar to what they have seen at home, they feel at home and above all they stay connected with their language and culture. This similarity can also create a very positive experience for the young children who see role models in the adults in the childcare centers

-Child care is a potential ‘threat’ to the parent-child bond and the cause for lower social development and emotional control. NICHD studies have shown that ‘Infants spending as little as 12 hours a week in day nurseries showed slightly lower levels of social development and emotional regulation (less enthusiastic cooperation, concentration, social engagement and initiative) as toddlers.’ (Adamson, 2008: 12) The above evidence leads to the author’s conclusion/ generalisation that ‘the younger the child and the longer the hours spent in child care the greater the risk.’ (Adamson, 2008: 12)

With the growing need for child care in America, more and more are popping up in multiple possible settings. Care Centers, Churches, At-home moms are not hard to find for day and after school child care. But not all forms are regulated. A reform on child care is needed to make it affordable, safe and productive for American children to reach their full potential during their developmental years and beyond. Unfortunately the majority of productive and high quality child care is based on demographic, cultural and financial options. Low income children and children who live in certain neighborhoods do not have access to childcare and preschool options. These are the most likely option to teach top rate social and educational instruction. As a result of the well educated providers being a bit more on the costly side, a large portion of American family child care is provided by unlicensed mom’s providing child care in their homes. This being more affordable than the child care centers, for obvious overhead reasons. With the percentage of Single Mothers growing/or and the need for a 2 income family, Child care become a well known and commonly needed service in the 1970’s.

For this journal, I will be discussing my sister’s experience with childcare. For her two children, now ages 6 and 8, child care was a necessity as both she and their father work full time. After my nephew was born, my sister placed him in the daycare center available where she worked, and later when he started preschool, he spent half days at an in-home daycare ran by one of my sister’s best friends. After my niece was born, my sister started out using the in-home daycare, so both children would be at one place, but she later enrolled her at an early childhood center that also had a preschool for her to attend when she was ready.