The central goal of the Family Child Care Training Project is to enhance the quality of early childhood development learning and care received in family child care settings and to facilitate capacity-building within the family child care sector.

Caregiver training has been consistently identified in the research as a critical component of quality care.

Quality in the Context of Family Child Care
Family Child Care Training Project: Supporting Early Childhood Development, Learning and Care in Family Child Care Settings

This research paper is the result of more than 80 representatives from child care organizations, researchers, caregivers and government officials from across Canada who participated in a symposium to develop a vision statement for family child care, to identify the main issues facing this field, and to discuss a research agenda for family child care.

Quality in the Context of Family Child Care focuses on the following areas:

The unique characteristics of the physical environment in family child care:

• Physical space – home setting, neighbourhood/community involvement
• Caregiver consistency throughout day
• Prevalence of mixed-age groups
• Intensity and duration of provider/parent relationship
• Nature of the work experience
  
  The unique aspects of family child care quality:
  
• It looks and acts like a home
• Purposeful use of home and local neighbourhood as learning opportunities
• Purposeful use of the mixed-age group as a learning opportunity
• Provider is parenting role model and source of support and information for
  families
• Provider successfully addresses the challenges of the work situation

Click here to download the full document in pdf format

The Family Child Care Training Program consists of three levels:

Level One is an introductory level and is primarily intended for those who have little, or no, previous training related to family child care. It is also intended for trained and experienced caregivers who would like the opportunity to review and reinforce their knowledge and to share their experiences with others.

Level Two is an intermediate level and is primarily intended for those who have participated in an introductory level training program (eg. Level One of the Family Child Care Training Program) and/or have had experiences as caregivers and participated in some training and professional development opportunities.

Level Three is an advanced level and is primarily intended for those who have participated in an introductory and intermediate level of the training program (eg. Level One – Introductory Level and Level Two – Intermediate Level of the Family Child Care Training Program) and have had experiences as caregivers and participated in some training and professional development opportunities. Level 3 contains units with information that will give the family child care provider a more global perspective of child care in general.

Train-the-Trainer Guide is designed to assist facilitators to prepare and deliver the Family Child Care Training Program. It provides information useful to both the experienced facilitator and those new to the world of adult education.