1 Presentation to OHM Conference ‘Whose Health Service is it anyway?’ ‘Developing Children-centred Childcare’ Jenny Bernard Early Childcare Services Manager Western Health Board

2 Early Childcare Services  A range of early childcare and family support services in accordance with expressed community need  High Quality Standards of Care and Education in all early childcare settings

3 Key Elements of a Quality Framework  Leadership and Governance  Physical Environment  Curriculum  Information Management  Human Resources  Social Inclusion

4 Some Challenges in developing Children-Centred Services  Who is the customer? -children/parents/funders?  Can young children tell us about their experiences?  Can young children participate in decision-making?  How can we gather and respond to young children’s views?

5 Influencing Practice-Planning and designing spaces for Children Process of Facilitation  stakeholders views  access to knowledge, information and expertise  the development of a shared vision for children

6 Developing Children-centred Childcare Moss and Penn (1996) ‘quality should be the product of thoughtful and self-reflective services and genuine partnership between stakeholders that goes beyond parents and staff exchanging information and views about individual children to making decisions together about the nature, ethos and running of services’