Educational issues for family day care: results of a South Australian survey

The training of family day care providers has been piecemeal, informal and of questionable quality. Their training has not been a serious issue because of the widely held view that family day care is an extension of the 'mothering' skills of the provider. This view of family day care as a 'home away from home' and the perception that it is essentially an extension of the normal domestic duties of women has mitigated against the development of formalised training. The push towards better and more importantly formalised training for family day care providers has arisen through a variety of reasons, and principally from the care providers and their member associations. In South Australia the Care Providers Association undertook a survey on the training needs of providers and this paper discusses the major results of that survey.