Playspaces: Educators, Parents and Toddlers

Abstract

This chapter is based on the Attachment Matters Project (Dolby R, The circle of security: roadmap to building supportive relationships. Early Childhood Australia, Canberra, 2007; Dolby R et al, Childcare: a holding environment: supporting infants and their parents with mental illness and emotional difficulties. In: Sved-Williams A, Cowling V (eds) Infants of parents with mental illness: Developmental, clinical, cultural and personal perspectives. Australian Academic Press, Brisbane, pp 249–262, 2008) that has pioneered a method of working to bridge the gap between knowledge and practice. In this project clinicians and educators in an early childhood centre have worked together for 10 years to develop new understandings of how teacher-child relationships and interactions can support children’s learning and social competence with peers. This chapter outlines their approach. They begin by choosing a practical issue in early childhood education and care, often a concern raised by educators. Small–scale research is conducted to understand the issue better. The findings are then used to develop a concrete procedure that educators and parents put into practice step-by-step. Each step is filmed and shared and discussed with parents and educators. This discussion is itself filmed and the ideas that emerge are incorporated into what is produced. The outcome of this collaborative approach is the production of a practical, well-tested procedure with a dedicated package of training resources that have come directly from practice with input from educators and families. In this chapter, the authors illustrate this approach by focusing on a particular issue—the day-to-day experience of toddlers and their families when they arrive at child care—and present the collaborative research and practical procedures undertaken and developed through the Attachment Matters Project to address this issue.