Designed for family child care providers, this report offers information and guidelines for the action planning involved in organizing for advocacy. Discussion covers issue campaigns, reasons to organize, considerations involved in determining and promoting issues, and strategy development. It is recommended that providers focus on a particular…

This study investigated the nature and extent of differences in young children's talk when they interact with mothers and peers. Sixteen girls between 2.5 and 3.5 years of age played twice with their mothers and twice with a peer. Play sessions were videotaped and coded according to measures of quantity and quality of talk. Results of measures of…

Describes the history of Women Attentive to Children's Happiness (WATCH), a self-help organization of family day care mothers which has developed an effective method of producing developmental programs for children and families. (ED)

This paper evaluates a program for assessing and/or training choice-making skills as a means of providing opportunities for adults with profound mental retardation to express food and drink preferences. In Experiment 1, the assessment/training procedure involving repeated, paired-item presentations, resulted in active choice-making and the…

The presence of family caregivers in their homes has mitigated the need for the elderly to choose between reducing health services (and thus health) to levels that they can afford or going into serious debt to maintain health. However, caregivers must balance their role of health producer in the home with their role of income producer in the labor…

This fact sheet is provided by the 4-C Worker Outreach Project in an effort to increase awareness of day care working conditions in Dane County, Wisconsin. Areas covered in the fact sheet are (1) staff wages and benefits; (2) educational background of day care staff; and (3) staff retention and turnover. Data were obtained from 58 full-day and 37…

The purpose of this handbook is to show how communities can initiate a successful recruitment campaign for family day care providers. In 11 chapters, discussion focuses on (1) the need for recruitment; (2) the recruitment process; (3) determining day care need; (4) conducting provider surveys; (5) incentive programs; (6) training classes; (7)…

This paper describes family day care and discusses how it is being used to meet the great need for child care in the Black community. The paper also reviews some of the concerns that affect Black caregivers and suggests some possible ways to strengthen the profession. Issues addressed include: What is family day care? Who are the caregivers? How…

To examine how knowledge of history and politics informs the early education and child care field, this paper identifies sources of historical knowledge and unexamined underlying presuppositions frequently held by early childhood professionals which, if allowed to remain unchallenged, contribute to professional burn-out, repeated frustration at…

The sociologist R. Bierstedt locates power in three sources: numbers of people, social organization, and available resources within the group. Women who are family day care providers can be empowered when they operate within a network of providers; when they are affiliated with a professional sponsoring organization; and when they deploy personal,…

Examples are provided in this discussion to indicate the nature of professional judgment in a teaching situation likely to be encountered by most child care workers or preschool teachers. Specifically, this predicament involves a problem in turn taking among 4-year-olds. As used here, the term "professional judgment" refers to cognitive…

Briefly discussed are the possible effects on child caregivers of the report of the Committee on Child Development Research and Public Policy, Panel on Child Care Policy of the National Academy of Sciences, National Research Coch Council. Specific attention is given to: (1) national standards and state regulation; (2) funding sources; and (3)…

There is growing evidence that the stress of caring for a relative with Alzheimer's disease may have adverse effects on the caregivers. This study was conducted to explore the mental health consequences of caregiving. Psychological data and mental health status information were obtained from 50 Alzheimer's disease spousal caregivers and from 50…

A conceptual framework for studying the role of social support in explaining family caregivers' psychological well-being is developed in this paper. In particular, the framework presented emphasizes the importance of conceptualizing caregiving as a social status, and drawing upon the broader literature on status acquisitions, social support, and…

Theories and quantitative studies were reviewed to address the issue of what promotes adaptive behavior development in very young children. Attention is given to the interactionist theories of Robert R. Sears, Eric H. Erikson, David Elkind, and Burton White. Commonalities among theorists are delineated in terms of stages, child rearing practices,…