Families in poverty – childcare services

How kindergartens can react – Poverty as a family situation and a framework for growing up in a child has consequences for those affected, but also for the work of early education specialists and the day care center (Kita) as an organization. The article first gives some examples of how poverty is reflected in day-to-day life in daycare. This is followed by the description of starting points for poverty prevention – in other words: poverty sensitivity – in and through the day care center.

Two new studies provide very good pointers to family life, but especially to the needs and potential of poor families (cf. Laubstein 2014, Andresen & Galic 2015). In general, it can be assumed on the part of the daycare that parents have a high need for advice on material issues (grants / contributions / reductions, transfer payments such as ALG II or housing benefit, BuT entitlements or dealing with arrears etc.), the parents have very limited options Have additional costs for excursions and you always have to plan early in order to give parents the chance to get really inevitable additional expenses from the tightly knit family budget. In children, poverty leads to specific material shortages, which the facility also has to deal with: How are the cramped and sometimes unhealthy family living conditions compensated for by more exercise and space? How is too little and / or unhealthy food caught in the daycare center over at least three meals? How is an inadequate supply of clothing and everyday objects counteracted??

Poverty in the family goes beyond this: The children often have increased needs for support in social and emotional development, but also in language, motor or cognitive skills development. How is it dealt with? Networking efforts and the active involvement of third parties are also of great importance. It becomes obvious that the problem of family poverty deeply affects the work of daycare centers. So what is possible and what to do?

Poverty Prevention in Day Care Centers – Many Options in Seven Areas

The further explanations are based on expertise written by Hock / Holz / Kopplow on behalf of the advanced training initiative for early childhood specialists – WIFF (see Hock et al. 2014). For this purpose, interviews with early childhood education specialists were carried out in six Wiesbaden daycare centers by Marlies Kopplow.

As a result, important starting points for (poverty) preventive action in day care centers and for early childhood specialists can be generated in seven areas.

Registration, reservation and access to the daycare

The facility management and the individual early education specialist can support parents affected by poverty with the following measures, for example, in accessing the day care center:

  • In general in advance: Create transparency about the access criteria of all providers in the district for all parents and keep them in every day care center.
  • When making a reservation: actively remembering parents, as well as being generous in the event of missed deadlines: do not delete poor / disadvantaged children immediately! Generous interpretation of the institution’s guidelines (with the consent of the institution) if linguistic communication problems or difficulties in dealing with bureaucracy are suspected in parents.
  • When admitting: Preferred admission of single parents and working people in precarious situations, because otherwise they risk losing their jobs and thus poverty. Inform all parents about the options and procedures for grant subsidies or the assumption of fees and offer help with completing the forms. Admit disadvantaged children as early (young) as possible and offer all-day places. Pay attention to a socially mixed composition.

Phases of transition – especially family admission to daycare

It is true of all children and their parents that they have to manage the transitions into and out of the day care center in a relatively short time. For all parents this means e.g. Develop trust in the specialist, accept their rules and manners and assume the new role of being the parent of a daycare child. The situation is similar with the transition from daycare to primary school.

Stressed parents come to the daycare with more fears. On the one hand, they step out of private space and thereby make their precarious situation public. On the other hand, they often lack social experiences and the confidence that they and their children will be well received. In the daycare, parental resource shortages become visible, and possible ones childhood Development deficits must be compensated for by action that is sensitive to poverty. These include (a) active and respectful approach to parents, (b) targeted promotion of family contacts to other parents, (c) active demand for office / authority matters, (d) often – but respectful and adapted to the situation – provide information about support options in the Take kindergarten or in the community as well as (e) fears and represent insecurities as normal for every family in this familiarization phase.

Concepts of daycare

According to the experts surveyed as part of the expertise, all pedagogical concepts 1 are in principle suitable for working with children and parents in economic risk situations. But what makes a poverty-sensitive day care center? If your educational concept is to be sensitive to poverty, then so

  • First of all, it must take into account the economic situation of the parents and keep the costs for development-promoting offers as low as possible,
  • All daycare offers must be accessible to all children,
  • must develop language development even in small groups because of their special importance for the educational career of the individual child,
  • Many, selected (health-preventive) physical activity offers have to take place inside and outside to compensate for the lack of family opportunities,
  • there must be offers in nature (e.g. forest weeks). For this missing Kle >Experts report from their experiences that children perceive among themselves who is poor and who is not: toys that are brought along and that are interesting, and clothing are important issues for girls and boys. What if you can’t keep up? Exclusions also take place when the child’s personal hygiene is poor. Personal hygiene and clean clothes are not just a question of money. Nevertheless, it is almost always children from precarious backgrounds that the specialists (and the other children!) Notice due to insufficient care. All of this makes interventions at group and parent level absolutely necessary.

Promoting inclusion through educational offers means, first of all, always strengthening all children, promoting their self-esteem and their appreciation of others, but also focusing on children with special needs. For children in precarious situations, it is important, for example, that many small, occasion-related door and fishing conversations with parents clarify the situation at eye level. Exclusions in the children’s group should also be discussed. Finally, it is about the involvement of all parents: They should know the problem in the children’s group and support the children / daycare center in solving it.

Working on the topic of “poverty” in a team

The topic of “poverty” becomes virulent in day-to-day nursery life, at the latest in connection with festivals and excursions, the impetus for this usually comes from the situation in early childhood specialists. Discussing the following topics seems to be particularly important:

  • When planning educational projects, consider the economic situation of all parents and ensure the participation of children affected by poverty,
  • Solutions for Kle >Solution-oriented team discussions automatically lead to the establishment of supportive prevention offers such as (a) advice on BuT services, (b) offering payment in installments (if, for example, larger amounts of money are incurred such as for leisure time), (c) donations to parents (amounts managed by the parents’ council), (d) clothing stock at the facility, (e) take-away exchange (for everyone, regardless of budget) or (f) games and books for free loan.

(Together) working with parents

It doesn’t work without parents – this knowledge has now become widely accepted. If counter-educational disadvantage is to be counteracted in the day-care center in cooperation with parents, then one can orientate oneself on the 7 large Bs of working with parents: encounter, advice, education, support, care, budget and participation (see Community Initiative 2010, see table).

Poverty-sensitive institutions also rarely get parents affected by poverty to actively participate in the advisory council. There are also a few parents who do not want to be reached at all. It is and remains the challenge to have a differentiated view of the type of parent (i.e. their stress, expectations and needs) in order to develop different access routes.

The big bs of working with parents
  • event-related options such as breakfast together; Parent-child afternoon etc.,
  • Lists with parents’ addresses and telephone numbers, specialists actively encourage mutual visits between children
  • Opportunity-independent opportunities to meet with each other, e.g. in an always accessible parent meeting
  • the so-called door-and-door conversation instead of the "ordered" conversation – specialists are always available for questions

(Parent) education and support

  • a parents’ café with a program, information and accompaniment
  • e.g. the acoustic letter to parents in different languages
  • Celebrations for parents and children (but: Attention costs! Good example: all parents who bring food donations to festivals receive vouchers in return, with which the whole family can get food and drinks for free at the festival)
  • Query of parent expectations and –Wishes, e.g. as part of development talks (no questionnaires).
  • Offer parents the opportunity to contribute their own resources

Networking and cooperation

The best way to get parents in a daycare center for offers for themselves, their children or together with their children is to use the specialist as a mediator between the offer and the target group. If the group teacher is convinced / not convinced of the quality and effect of an offer, the parents will feel it and will go there or not.

The interviewed early childhood specialists wish to know the offers for parents and the provider well, which e.g. could be designed as follows. (Poverty sensitive) specialists can win parents over for offers if

  • the providers present themselves and their offer in the daycare center,
  • Offers take place in the day care center, e.g. a course offer for parents and children under three before they go to kindergarten,
  • mutual exchange of information is ensured,
  • the daycare center and the other providers in the district are networked and regularly deal with what parents need.

A lot, but not everything, that children need for good development can be offered in the rooms of a daycare center. Creating incentives to discover the world also means going outside. The poverty-sensitive daycare center therefore uses the resources that the district or the wider area offers to complement its own range of offers and ensures that they are used by the parents and their children in question.

Conclusion

What has been outlined makes it clear that the quality of today’s daycare work includes being sensitive to poverty issues in order to consciously act preventively. The aim is always to ensure that all young people grow up well-being and thus prevent or reduce the consequences of family income poverty in the child. In institutions with a high proportion of poor children / families, there is a high level of competence and specialist know-how. It is surprising that the people working there are often not even aware of it. All professions dealing with young people and families can learn a lot from them for their own work practice.

references

Andresen, Sabine / Galic Danijela (2015): Children. Poverty. Family .: coping with everyday life and ways of effective support. Guetersloh

Community Initiative AWO Niederrhein, ISS-Frankfurt am Main, City of Monheim am Rhein – Youth Welfare Office (2010): "Socio-educational parenting" indispensable for the future. eat.

Hock, Beate / Holz, Gerda / Kopplow, Marlies (2014): Children in Poverty Conditions: Basics of Poverty-Sensitive Action in Day Care for Children. Expertise on behalf of the WIFF. Munich.

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