Work Conditions in Long Day Care in the Era of Accreditation

Abstract

Workers in selected long day care centres in Sydney, Australia were surveyed on issues such as time allocated for written work, adequate staff-child ratio, inservice training, the process of accreditation, award wages and conditions, and attitudes to long day care. The aim of the survey was to find out if child care work conditions had changed with the implementation of accreditation. The results indicated that most of the respondents agreed that accreditation ensures high quality care but they found the process difficult, mainly due to lack of time. Work conditions over all had not changed as almost half of the respondents do not have allocated time for written work; half of the respondents did not agree with the staff-child ratio and three-quarters were not satisfied with their awards and wanted higher wages.