Childcare Worker Assumptions about Caring

Assumptions influence behavior. What are the implications for the care of children and youth-of the assumptions that child care workers bring to their profession? Assumptions in four areas of care are studied: routine and the value of consistency, safety, and predictability, nurture as relationships and attachments are formed, social skill development as a function of socialization, and discipline as a tool of development. An emergent category of care is that of co-worker support. Follow-up, unanticipated initially, became the most significant outcome of this study. Follow-up is both an assumption about care--how to provide it and an act of care in that child care workers do so. It is necessary to account for child care worker assumptions about care as these assumptions are enacted by the worker as he or she interprets the program they are trained to follow. The significance of follow-up is heightened because it oftens happens informally and interpersonnally with lasting implications for the service provided.