This study has been designed to prepare stable operation environment of "Local Chlidcare Center" as a main children welfare facility in a local community and the number of local childcare centers has been rapidly increased since the enactment in 2004....
This study has been designed to prepare stable operation environment of "Local Chlidcare Center" as a main children welfare facility in a local community and the number of local childcare centers has been rapidly increased since the enactment in 2004. This is the first research paper regarding supervision allowing childcare workers who are the fundamental element of stable operation of a facility to teach knowledge and skills in stable emotional condition and the status and needs of educational training to launch a new program and improve quality of service.
The questions to identify supervision and educational needs of local childcare center workers are as followings;-
1) How about the status of supervision (frequency, type, content, method) of local childcare center workers?
2) How about satisfaction and needs of supervision of local childcare center workers?
① Acknowledgement and difference according to the roles of a supervisor
and supervisee
② Acknowledgement and difference according to the features of demographic
sociology of respondents
3) How about the participating status and needs of education of local childcare center workers?
The study was carried out from 13/10/2008 to 08/11/2008. The survey papers were distributed to total 285 local childcare centers registered in Seoul by an ordinary mail. 109 out of the 285 childcare centers responded. Returned survey papers were total 260 and 6 survey papers with insincerity were excluded from this study. Total 254 paper including 94 papers from supervisors and 160 papers from supervisees were used in this study.
The overall status of providing supervision and needs of education were identified by frequency analysis, multiple response analysis and descriptive statistics. In addition, each status and educational needs were reviewed by crosstabulation analysis, independent t-test and ANOVA as a parametric statistics and Kruskal-Wallis Test as a non-parametric statistics. Effects of each feature on educational needs and related issues were verified by regression analysis.
The results of the study and suggestions on the status of supervision and educational needs of local childcare center workers are as followings;-
First, local childcare centers had a high level of supervision for both supervisors and supervisees and the supervision was regularly carried out. In addition, the supervision were delivered through verbal communication and meetings. However, for systematical application and effectiveness of supervision, it is needed to establish and execute annual plan of supervision, considering needs of workers.
Second, as the contents of supervision for local childcare center workers focused on establishment of direction and program plan for enrolled children and monitoring of normal works including progression evaluation, it is required to strengthen educational and supportive supervision for the purpose of promotion of speciality and emotional stabilization of local childcare center workers.
Third, although there were high response rate for necessity of supervision, satisfaction of supervision were low. This means that contents of supervision currently carried out in local childcare centers should be improved and changed.
Fourth, it was mentioned that people who had long service history in a childcare center or an operator of childcare center were qualified for a supervisior. In addition, respondents, both supervisors and supervisees, showed a high response rate for the necessity of education for a supervisor.
Fifth, local childcare center workers had a high rate of participation in education, especially internal education. However, as satisfaction of the participation were lower than the average rate, it was revealed that the education were not very effective. Therefore, a method is required to increase effectiveness of education.
Finally, regarding education of local childcare center workers, while support to the expenses of participation in education and positiveness of the workers for the participation were high, internal condition of local childcare centers to encourage workers to participate in education were not well prepared. Therefore, a staff training direction to form such condition should be prepared and a method to encourage to participate in education programs should be included in a facility operation policy.
Construction of supervision support system in a local childcare center and participation of staffs including a chief in a facility and life welfare workers can increase understanding of and capability to respond to problematic behaviors of enrolled children, strengthen professional skills and capability and lead development of local childcare center in quality. Such activities can be the foundation for the growth of children in local childcare centers toward the whole person.