While affirming the biological and environmental factors which impact on children’s development, several studies have also documented that the quality of the care-giving children receive is an equally important determinant in their developmental outcomes. Research suggests  young children who have frequent and sustained access to high quality interactions and who learn through play are; physically healthier, more psychologically adjusted, display greater self-regulatory skills, and demonstrate superior cognitive skills. Despite these findings, Jamaica’s early years institutions  still continue to prioritise structural quality (physical features/ look) over process quality (the experiences children have)  in early years settings.

In 2018 the  Ministry of Education, Youth and Information signaled the importance of “capturing children” before they entered the formal school setting at age three in order to improve their developmental outcomes. Heavily influenced by the research which highlighted the importance of the first one thousand days of life and its importance in setting the trajectory for children’s immediate and future lives, the government committed to establish and staff one hundred and twenty-six Brain Builders Centres across the island.  With the overarching goal to remove barriers to high quality care for infants and toddlers, these heavily subsidized Brain Builders  nurseries  and child care facilities would ensure that more children, regardless of socio economic status, special needs  or parental background would have equal access to early care.

Though well intentioned, without immediate intervention many of these nurseries may fail to positively impact on the critical issues the MOEYI intends to address. The few studies that have focused on Jamaica’s nursery settings have highlighted the deficiencies in the quality of the care children receive in them.  While the majority of these settings satisfactorily attend to children’s physical needs (bathing, toileting and feeding) the qualitative findings of Kinkead- Clark’s (2019) research illuminate several weaknesses in how practitioners interact with infants and toddlers. These findings are corroborated by the Early Childhood Commission’s School/centre Inspection Reports which indicated only five percent of nurseries were deemed to show evidence of quality interactions.  Further compounded by low staff qualification standards, minimal opportunities for profession development, and limited understanding of developmentally appropriate practices, the goal to increase access to child care facilities without improving the quality offerings in the centres may have the potential to be more harmful than beneficial to children’s developmental needs.

Specific benefits to be derived - potential impact on society
In 2018, the School of Education, through one of its units, the Dudley Grant Early Childhood Resource Centre received a grant of approximately twenty-seven million dollars from CHASE Funds, for a two phase project. Phase 1 addressed the professional development needs for persons who oversee child care facilities and who teach/ supervise early childhood practitioners. Through the Training of Trainers initiative, key stakeholders including; Early Childhood lecturers at the teachers colleges, External Examiners with the Joint Board of Teacher Education, Development Officers, School Inspectors and Supervisors with the Early Childhood Commission were trained to understand ways to meet the needs of children in the birth to 36 months cohort and to develop of a repertoire of strategies to address process quality in facilities catering to infants and toddlers.

Phase 2 of the project involves the placement of purposefully trained Early Years Coaches in child care facilities across the island in order to address issues germane to process quality. Using the internationally benchmarked Infant and Toddlers Early Childhood Rating Scale (ITERS-3) to assess centre quality, Early Years Coaches are required to collect baseline data and then develop Individualized Centre Improvement Plans (ICIP) with the goal to improve the process quality in each child care facility.

The Quality Interactions Project is the first of its kind to be done in the Caribbean Community. In addition to improving child care offerings in Jamaica, the data generated from this research has the potential to guide how our neighbouring Caribbean countries and other nations socially and economically similar to Jamaica can address issues germane to the care and treatment of children in early years of their development

New partnerships being developed
In addition to having implications for improving process quality in nurseries and daycares across the island, it is anticipated that several articles can be generated from the findings of this research. Two articles are currently in the late stages of the peer review process. There is also the potential for several other publications.  It is also expected that the findings will allow for comparative analyses of child care services in other contexts which will be fuelled by collaborating with researchers in the UK, China and the United States.

View EARLY CHILDHOOD LECTURERS FROM JAMAICA, BARBADOS & TRINIDAD & TOBAGO,
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