Employees’ views on quality

Abstract

The results from a national survey of almost 600 long day care staff, carried out by the Australia Institute in late 2005, show that in most cases staff believe that the quality of care offered in their centre is quite high. However, when the results are reported by provider type, consistent patterns become evident. Across a range of aspects of quality care, corporate chain childcare centres appear to provide poorer quality care than community-based and independent private childcare centres. The staff survey included questions about: • time to develop relationships with individual children • programming to accommodate children’s individual needs and interests • the variety of the equipment provided • the quality and quantity of the food provided • the staff-to-child ratios • whether the respondent would send their own child, aged under two, to the centre they were employed at, or one offering comparable quality of care.