Making Child
Care Work for Families of Children with Emotional or Behavioral
Challenges
Eileen Brennan
Principal Investigator
Models of Inclusion in Child Care project
In today’s 24/7 work world, it is increasingly difficult
for parents to locate child care arrangements that will nurture
their children while family members engage in employment or job
training. This ordeal is especially trying for family members of
children who have emotional or behavioral disorders.
"I was at my wit's end trying to find a day care
[for] my son because he got kicked out of three [child care arrangements]
for behavioral problems and biting."
This statement from a parent of a child with challenging behavior
reveals the high level of frustration experienced by family members
who are trying to find and maintain child care arrangements for
their children.
Fortunately there are child care providers who practice inclusion
and who welcome children with challenges into their homes and child
care centers. A team of investigators at the Research and Training
Center on Family Support and Children’s Mental Health recently
completed a study that identified nine child care centers that were
successful in providing quality, culturally appropriate child care
to children with emotional or behavioral challenges alongside their
typically developing peers. Team members interviewed over 90 child
care administrators and staff, and family members whose children
were enrolled. They also observed children interacting with their
peers and with staff members. An analysis of the interviews and
observations showed that the inclusive centers had some key elements
in common:
- Staff members were committed to full inclusion of every child
at the center, and worked to adapt the program to the children,
not the children to the center.
- Families and staff formed caring partnerships that respected
the family’s culture and worked together on strategies that
would help children develop socially and emotionally.
- Individualized care helped children to be successful, and staff
employed innovative strategies to promote children’s social
and emotional development and to transform negative feelings and
behaviors.
- Mental health providers supplied consultation to the centers,
and other resources were also used to support children, staff,
and family members.
- Families were highly satisfied with the care their children
received, and did not worry that their children would be asked
to leave, even in a crisis.
- Building an inclusive program took commitment, time, and sufficient
resources to assure quality services.
Child care providers that welcome children with challenges may
be a rare resource in the United States, but they are in a unique
position to support families and children. We ask you to post your
experiences with child care:
- What is the best care arrangement you have seen for children
with emotional or behavioral challenges?
- What are the supports that are necessary to maintain a child
in a child care setting?
- Do the challenges of finding care differ, given the age of
a child?
- If you are a child care provider, what has helped you most
to effectively serve families of children with challenges?
Resources:
We value your
responses!
Janet S. Walker,
Web editor
Your
thoughts…
Comments:
 Recent events here in Pennsylvania have brought to me how important it is that consumer/survivors must be in charge of the Protection and Advocacy Services for Persons with "Mental Illness" set up in each state. The Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness (PAIMI) act passed congress in 1986. This act set up grants that were mandated by federal law to go to the existing agency set up to provide Protection and Advocacy Services (PAS) to people who are developmentally disabled. At the time the Consumer/ Survivor (CS) movement was just getting stated in many states and was not consulted in any real way about this new federally funded program. Over the years the CS moment in each state has had mixed results in getting the PAS to involve the movement in the program of PAIMI. In Pennsylvania we probably were the most successful in getting involvement in the planning of our PAIMI program. Recently though we have seen a lot of things change. One issue is that the PAS have grown from two programs to in some state five or six programs for all sorts of folks so now the PAIMI represents in many sates less than a fifth of the agency funding and that usually means less that a fifth of the board. This has happened in Pa and now we consumers have found ourselves voted off the board this year. We have also seen a growth of activist parents in several of the other communities that PAS represent and these parent groups are demanding and getting a bigger say on the board. So in Pa we are now faced with a service that is funded to protect our right but with little or no say for consumer/survivors on how those service are structured. What can we do about this? I am not sure but I would like to open the discussion in our movement and towards that end I am planning a teleconference for October 29th at 7:00 PM.
If you would like to be part of this teleconference drop me a line at jrogers@mhasp.org.
Joseph
Posted Tuesday, October 14, 2003 at 11:14 PM
It is good to hear that there are child care programs offering the individualized care needed by childen who present challenging behaviors. Are these resources for pre-school age and young school age children? There do not seem to be resources for older children, and pre-teens who need before and after school programs to keep them safe. While after school programs are available in some schools and other settings, they are not staffed sufficiently to include individualized approaches, so children who cannot function in a group are asked to leave. Not only does this leave the parents with no resource, but it also leaves the older child with no opportunity to develop peeer relationships at the time when they most need to develop these skills. One single parent is required to pay $9.00 per for after school, and non school days care: she earns $9.20 per hour. Posted Thursday, October 2, 2003 at 04:10 PM
I believe that revolutionary common sense such as written about in Kathie Snow's Diabity is Natural can guide 'most' families and providers into finding inclusion settings that are affordable and work. I believe that most of the time it is easier than we think it will be. However, it does require letting go of some of our ways of thinking and maybe even our comfort zones. Posted Monday, September 29, 2003 at 09:10 PM
I believe that a provider that is good with child can be good with children with disabilities. It seems it is 80% attitude and 20& training. The attitude of wanting to serve ALL children is the best place to start. A providers willingness to adapt a program to a child rather than a child to a program sums up all that is needed in the way of attitude. There are more trainings available than many providers are aware of. Many of these trainings are free or inexpensive and often held in evening hours in 2 hour chunks of time so that most can attend. Posted Monday, September 29, 2003 at 09:04 PM
I think in many cases, the effort involved in making inclusion work is just too much for well-meaning staff who are already functioning at the limits of their capacity-- who are underpaid and often not in the field long enough to acquire a repertoire of strategies for dealing with children with challenging behaviors. Effective inclusion probably requires a fairly professionalized staff, something which is not very common among "average" daycare providers. Posted Monday, September 29, 2003 at 08:33 PM
What Karen says above is practical thinking. Agencies that link families to services and resources would do well to have a family liaison within their ranks, perhas with that position filled by a parent.
In larger systems there a parent advisory board could assist in bridging some of the outreach and communication gaps. Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2003 by ctmom05@yahoo.com at 06:09 PM
I believe Child Care Resource and Referral agencies can play a critical role ensuring support to families looking for child care as well as linking families and providers to resources. This role of consultation, support and a "broker" to available resources is of paramount importance to successful inclusion. Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2003 by Karen Fogolin at 02:34 PM
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