It is 2007 and over the last few years Family Friend and Neighbor care (FFN) has suddenly become a hot topic. Workshops related to FFN care can be found at almost any early childhood conference and numerous funders want to know what we are doing to support FFN care providers.
But when we think about FFN care, numerous questions bubble to the surface.
What is FFN care and how can it be impacted?
Do best practices in FFN care look like best practices in formal child care settings or are they different?
Is FFN care sometimes the best possible choice for a particular child or family or is regulated care always the preferred choice?
Should we regulate FFN care? If so, should we regulate all of it or just FFN care that is paid for with public dollars?
Is the early childhood and school aged professional development system the best place to support and train FFN providers or are there other systems better suited to this work?
FFN care has been around for thousands of years. Why are we so interested right now?
With such limited resources in our field right now, can we really spread them further to support FFN care too? Is this the best use of our resources?
Why do so many of us have such strong feelings about FFN care? Even some of us who have used FFN care are uncomfortable with extending our early childhood and school-age care system to include FNN even though others may think this kind of inclusion is past due...
What do we mean when we say “prepared for kindergarten”?
Do we mean prepared to learn or do we mean prepared to handle the structure and setting of kindergarten as it currently exists.
And finally, and most importantly, is being in an environment that supports and encourages optimum learning a right for all children? Is it a choice deserved by all?; a choice that can be purchased by those with the resources to do so?; a parent choice?; or a community choice? Is optimal learning the same for all children, or does it differ from child to child?
These are just a few of the many questions that come up when we think about FFN care and our professional development system. We look forward to discussing them with you at our upcoming MnPDC meeting on February 22.
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