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As child abuse and neglect in childcare settings continue to occur, a quality childcare workforce is imperative. This paper aims to describe how an efficient and effective childcare Workforce Background Check system was developed and implemented to protect both children and childcare staff in the state of Michigan.

The user-centered design (UCD) approach was used in the creation and statewide implementation of a new acceptable and usable system, the Michigan childcare background check (CCBC) system. The authors conducted focus groups to obtain user feedback and performed several usability evaluations. This approach was used as guidance for the development process and to evaluate the concept designs for the web application that was created.

This paper discusses the overall process of implementing the CCBC program, focusing on successes, barriers and lessons learned in the planning, designing and execution phases. By May 2019, more than 92,069 background checks were conducted on personnel in 8,740 licensed childcare facilities across Michigan. Collaboration across stakeholders in different sectors facilitated the implementation of the new system, while structural barriers and stigma provided barriers to implementation.

Having individuals with various roles, abilities and technical expertise assist with the development and implementation of the system ensured the usability and acceptability of the new system by all types of users.

The general public expects childcare providers to ensure that their employees meet the highest professional standards. Developing effective, easy-to-use fingerprint-based criminal history background check systems to identify ineligible applicants and monitor current employees is one component of an overall strategy to promote child safety and minimize child abuse and neglect in the childcare environments.

This paper provides a practical example of how a CCBC system can be developed, implemented and scaled to be used statewide. This approach can be used by other states or other disciplines with a similar context.

As child abuse and neglect in childcare settings continue to occur, a quality childcare workforce is imperative. This paper shows how this study uses the UCD approach to create an acceptable and usable system and complete statewide implementation of a new Michigan CCBC program. This resulted in an efficient and effective Workforce Background Check system that is essential to protect both children and childcare staff.

In the Netherlands, childcare and primary schools are governed by two different systems of two ministries, and although these institutes are usually located nearby, there always have been low levels of cohesion with respect to institute-to-institute collaboration. However currently, there is a national trend in enhancing interprofessional collaboration (IPC) with the aim of inclusion and equity. This study focuses on getting insight into the differences in intensity of collaboration and how IPC is organized. A two-dimensional Child Centre Integration Model which accounts for the variations in the degree of IPC in child centres and gives insight into IPC at different levels and into conditions for intensifying IPC is presented. That Dutch education and childcare systems do not connect with each other is seen to be an important cause of the failure or complication of IPC. Because the systems do not connect at the macro level, we see struggles in the necessary normative dimension due to status differences (i.e., inequality between employees) and differences in funding and autonomy. Differences between public (education) and private (childcare) institutions also lead to difficulties when it comes to fostering closer collaboration. This chapter ends with key lessons for practice and policy, including the suggestion that one strong ministry for child affairs, including education and childcare, which stimulates an unambitious course at national level, is required. This course can then be translated at regional and local levels.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the changes in local childcare policy that have taken place between the years 2008 and 2016 in the city of Jyväskylä, Finland, and to study how the local gender contract for women is being reshaped via these transformations in local policy.

Case study was applied as a research strategy. Local and national level statistics were used to explore the use of childcare services. Documents regarding the decision-making and administration of childcare in the city were analysed to distinguish the local policy changes during the time period. These documents include city budgets and records from the two municipal boards that have held the administrative responsibility of local childcare policy. The analysis of the data was conducted by using document analysis and feminist content analysis as a methodological framework.

The results show that the overall development in local childcare policy has been towards cutbacks in childcare services and benefits, and towards the marketisation of childcare services. The city has also implemented new, locally specific childcare policies, which constitute a hybrid form of marketisation and neofamilism. Together these developments are creating a new local gender contract, which goes beyond the past previous traditional or modern models. This new local gender contract for women is defined as that of “entrepreneurial homemaker”.

This paper contributes to the research on local social policy by identifying the role of local childcare policy in reshaping the gender contract in a Nordic context. This paper advances the theorisation of the concept of gender contract by introducing the “entrepreneurial homemaker” model of gender contract.

To investigate the application of the social enterprise model to the childcare sector in Scotland and develop a practical model for analysing such social enterprises.

A review of the literature of ideas on social enterprise found in official and academic literature is presented. The concept of “social enterprise” is reviewed with particular reference to features of the childcare sector that relate both generally and specifically to Scotland. Reports the results of a questionnaire survey, conducted in late 2005 and early 2006, involving 81 childcare organizations (27.0 per cent response rate).

The results indicated that about two‐thirds of the organizations operated at just one site, with playgroups tending to be local groups operating in relatively small geographical areas. Reveals that the issue of whether childcare should be free caused mixed but fairly evenly distributed responses, from strong agreement to strong disagreement, but the issue of external sources of funding and the problems involved caused the majority of respondents to agree that childcare services are unsustainable without external funding, a finding that shows that sustainability is not the same as self‐sufficiency. Concludes that childcare sector issues and social economy issues are the most significant.

Contributes to the social enterprises literature where there is a dearth of knowledge about the birth and death rates for social enterprises and where improved statistics would help in supporting sector‐related policies more effectively and understanding better the sector’s function and behaviour. Provides information that could be helpful for banks and other financial institutions that might be in a position to offer credit to these social enterprises.

This article analyses UK Early Years policy in terms of service expansion and service transformation since the Labour Government's election in 1997. Childcare is now a matter of public policy, driven largely by concerns about child poverty and inequalities in children's life chances. The evidence is considered, first, on service expansion, increased take‐up and increased employment by parents with young children, and, second, on service transformation and child outcomes: to what extent have changes benefited disadvantaged children, families and neighbourhoods? The Effective Provision of Preschool Education (EPPE) research shows that pre‐school can boost disadvantaged children's intellectual development in particular, and the article concludes that programmes such as Sure Start and Neighbourhood Nurseries have been successfully targeted at the most disadvantaged areas, although better‐off families and neighbourhoods may have benefited even more, and that problems of cost and sustainability remain. It is too early to judge whether better integrated services now being developed will be successful in transforming the lives of the most disadvantaged children.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

Over the past few decades, the subject of governance has come to the fore in many public discussions, notably with regard to reforms of the social protection system. Without entering into various debates the concept has generated, we shall use it in its positive sense (Gilly, Leroux, & Wallet, 2004), to designate all of the interactions between various public and private actors in the elaboration and implementation of public policies to attain shared objectives of general interest (Enjolras, 2008; Le Galès, 1998). Governance thus reflects a change in the forms of collective action – which certainly would qualify as modernisation – and the growing importance granted to management strategies in this change. It also brings out the complexity of the interrelationships between the different levels of decision-making (horizontal and vertical), which might be characterised as ‘poly-governance’ (Eme, 2005). And governance also permits a simultaneous approach to the new territorial, productive and partnership arrangements emerging in response to the different levels of constraints and socio-demographic changes. These issues lie at the heart of the transformations of the welfare state and related policies for rationalising public intervention and stabilising public finances. Studies dealing with welfare mix and welfare pluralism (Evers & Svetlik, 1993; Esping-Andersen, 1999; Ascoli & Ranci, 2002; Pestoff, 2006; Richez-Battesti, 2008) bring out different ways of combining sources of risk protection or other forms of solidarity. Such research reinforces analyses of co-ordination, as well as those of management and decision-making.

Nowadays children from immigrant families are the fastest growing group of youth in the United States. Despite the fact that emerging research has highlighted the significance of strong partnerships between families and high-quality early childcare/education programs, many immigrant families face numerous barriers in accessing high-quality childcare/early education as well as establishing strong partnerships with centers. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the emerging challenges that immigrant families face in navigating the U.S. early childhood education system. This chapter first briefly reviews the literature on the role of family involvement in early childhood education within the general U.S. population. This is followed by a review of the unique funds of knowledge that immigrant parents engage in while interacting with their children at home. Then this chapter explores the barriers of immigrant families in developing strong partnerships with early childcare/education programs such as, communication, limited parental English proficiency, lack of public funding, acculturation, education, and cultural perceptions of involvement. Furthermore, this is followed by a focus on two distinct rising immigrant populations within the United States, Hispanic (specifically non-refugee) and refugee populations, and their unique sets of obstacles. Lastly, recommendations are provided for future practitioners and policymakers to support the establishment of stronger immigrant family and professional partnerships within early education and childcare settings.

The nature of early care and education (ECE) programs in the United States, serving children from birth through age eight, has shifted dramatically in the last 20 years. With his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama positioned ECE at the top of his educational reform agenda. His acknowledgment of the importance of the early years in providing a foundation for children’s lifelong learning and the critical need for national reform is welcoming to those of us in the field; yet, we meet it with some trepidation. ECE has a history of fragmented services for children and families, relying primarily on inconsistent state funds. Additionally, the pressure to be more competitive with our global counterparts has led to an academic push down at all levels of education, including ECE, rather than an increase in support for schools to meet the diverse needs of young children. The President’s proposed initiative further contributes to this pressure on our youngest children, their families, and their ECE caregivers.

In this chapter, we examine the current state of the ECE field, with an emphasis on the years prior to kindergarten.

We analyze two federal ECE initiatives, and argue for a return to the original purposes of ECE that best serve young children and families.

Political analyses of the East Asian welfare state development often stress the importance of the power resource model, in which vibrant coalitions between the leftist party, interest groups, civil society and working-class unions have become driving factors in producing generous welfare outcomes. Challenging such analyses, this article discusses the convergence of the political attitude between political actors who are increasingly homogeneous (supportive) when it comes to the universal welfare state notion by focussing on childcare in South Korea.

By using desk review of the peer-reviewed literature and reports, this article investigates the causation for why political parties with different political ideologies were keen on extending childcare programs and its outcome in addressing the existing demographic problems in Korea.

Although the collective movement, especially in the 1990s and 2000s, had given important contributions to the early development of childcare in South Korea, more breakthroughs in childcare features were precisely and rapidly developed after politicians from different spectrums of political affiliations converged in their supportive attitude of the universal welfare. The driving factors of political convergence itself are not merely due to electoral competition or political activism; furthermore, it can be linked to the increased global institution involvement in domestic policy with extensive permeability, which, have ruined domestic policy development maintained for ideological reasoning and bring in more popular policy setting.

This article contributes to the growing literature on the political aspect of East Asian social policy studies, which goes beyond the traditional power resource analysis and makes a novel contribution to the childcare policy studies.