6. Standards of Practice

Definitions

The term practitioner refers to adults who work in the field of child care including: early childhood educators, family child care providers, family resource program personnel, resource and referral program personnel.^[1]

A child care setting is a setting other than the child’s home in which care and education is provided for the child by a person who is not a member of the child’s immediate family.

Standards of practice are benchmarks or points of reference against which occupations and the proficiency of people in those occupations are measured or assessed.^[2] Standards of practice are also known as occupational standards.

What is the scope of standards of practice?

Standards of practice identify the particular skills and abilities necessary to perform the required tasks in a competent fashion. Usually, they do not encompass the full range of tasks that are typically performed; instead, they focus on the “set of tasks [that are] deemed to be the critical aspect of the occupation.”^[3]

In trades where tasks can be described in a tangible and measurable way, standards of practice may be limited to delineation of the actual tasks to be performed. However, in occupations that cannot adequately be described in this fashion, such as the provision of child care, standards of practice often include the requirement that a practitioner “have a minimum level of understanding of the concepts, theories, and practices of the occupation before they can work in the field.”^[4]

Supporting and fostering child well-being and development in child care settings requires the provision of certain experiences. The extent to which these experiences are appropriate and effective depends, in part, on the skills, knowledge and abilities of the adults relating to the child. Similarly, establishing and maintaining a partnership with a child’s family requires certain skills and abilities based on specific types of knowledge.

Why Have Standards of Practice?

Regulation can increase the likelihood of quality in an early childhood setting by stipulating standards, such as child-to-adult ratios, that are consistent with those demonstrated through research to be associated with child well-being and supportive of child development. However, government regulations are simply enablers, not guarantees. Therefore, as noted by Griffin, it is essential that practitioners in early childhood settings themselves “develop and maintain the quality system that we seek.”^[5] Practitioners in other human service fields have done this through mechanisms such as the establishment and enforcement of occupational standards.

Various writers^[6] have noted that standards of practice serve:

• as the basis for ensuring that the people receiving the service are not put at risk;
• to identify the type of preparation required and the skills needed to perform the work at an acceptable level;
• as guidelines in designing and delivering training and as a benchmark against which training can be judged;
• to assist training institutions to convey expectations to students, employers to convey expectations to directors and supervisors, and directors and supervisors to convey expectations to frontline workers;
• as a benchmark against which actual practice can be judged by the individual or by another person;
• to assist in the determination of whether people who obtained their basic qualification in another jurisdiction can meet the expectations of the jurisdiction in which they now wish to work.

The need for standards of practice in the early childhood field has been identified both in Canada^[7] and in the United States.^[8]

What is the basis of these standards of practice?

Standards of practice must be based on what practitioners actually do and the skills and abilities required to provide care that facilitates child well-being and development and supports the family in meeting its’ responsibilities for the child. A Canadian consensus on the critical aspects of providing such care, whether the care is centre-or home-based, emerges from identifying the commonalities among recent statements developed through broad consultation in the field. The documents in question are:

• The National Statement on Quality Child Care (1991) by the Canadian Child Day Care Federation.
• Early Childhood Education Professional Competencies (1991) by Coordinators of Early Childhood Education program in Ontario’s Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology.
• Certification Criteria ( 1993) by Certification Council of Early Childhood Educators of Nova Scotia.
• National Guidelines for Training in Early Childhood Care and Education (1994) by the Canadian Child Care Federation.
• A Training Plan for Family Day Care Providers (1994) by the Family Day Care Association of Manitoba.
• Step Ahead: Alberta Family Day Home Provider Training and Certification Program (1994) by the Alberta Association of Family Day Care Homes.
• Early Childhood Education Program Standard (1996) by the Ontario College Standards and Accreditation Council.
• Good Beginnings: Caregiving Skills for Family Child Care Providers (1996) by Western Canada Family Child Care Association of B.C.
• Child Care Sector Occupational Competencies (1997) by the B.C. Multi-lateral Task Force on Training, Career Pathing and Labour Mobility in the Community Social Services Sector.
• Canadian Approaches to Family Support (1995) by the Canadian Association of Family Resource Programs.

To whom do these standards of practice apply?

These standards apply to adults working with children in any of the following settings:

• a family child carehome (all sections pertain to this setting);
• a child care centre (all the sections except section E pertain to this setting); and
• a family resource program that provides one or more of the following regular or occasional child care: a half-day child development program such as Head Start or kindergarten preparation, a nursery school program, a parent/child/caregiver drop-in program, a play group, before-and afterschool care, child minding to support another program for adults, for example, English or French as a Second Language, all sections pertain that are relevant to the services being provided. A family resource program is also known as a parent-child resource program or centre, a child-family support program, a family centre and a family place.

This section is copied and adapted from Standards of Practice section in Doherty. G. (2000). Partners in Quality: Tools for Practitioners in Child Care Settings. Standards of Practice, Code of Ethics, Guide to Self-Reflection. Ottawa: Canadian Child Care Federation.