From Kindergarten towards Integrated Center: Lithuanian example

1. From Kindergarten towards Integrated Center:Lithuanian example Dr. Jolita Buzaitytė-Kašalynienė Vilnius University

2. Design Before 1990 in Soviet system: All women had to work equally with men; Child care had to be provided for all children since 1 year old; Wide network of kindergartens has been developed equally in cities and rural areas; Members of extended family and “nannies” has been used widely as well.

3. After the regaining of national Independence in 1990 renewal of patriarchal attitudes, reflecting a reaction against certain public values prominent in the discourse of the Soviet Occupation. Voices were heard calling for ‘the return women to families’ Family policy of conservative party, women got a right to take free years for the maternity leave. Social security funds paid 70 per cent of the salary during the first year and small benefit of 90 Lt or 28 EUR per month during the second and third year.

4. The number of child-care institutions has been in consistent decline since 1990: In 1990 there were 1808 pre-school institutions: 1003 in urban and 805 in rural areas. In 2003, only 672 pre-school institutions remained, 489 in urban areas and 183 in rural areas. Decline in birthrates as well.

5. Nowadays: There are now big disparities in attendance at kindergartens according to age and location. The highest current attendances - 84.3% - are in urban areas, for children of 3-6 years of age, while the lowest attendances (3.8 %) are among children in the rural areas aged between 1-3 years.

6. In Lithuania, nurseries and kindergartens are mainly run by the municipalities. There are very few private agencies represented, and this is also true for facilities run by NGOs or charity organizations.

7. The standard institutional child-care services in Lithuania are the nurseries (1 to 3 years old) and kindergartens (3 to 6 years old). These are ‘long-day care’ services. Their hours of opening average between 10.5 and 12 hours each day a standard pattern being from 6.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. for five days of the week. Parents bring, or take a child whenever it is convenient to these facilities, e.g. bring in before 9 a.m., and take out before or after afternoon sleep.

8. If mothers return to the workplace before their child is one year old nannies are normally employed. Indeed it is normal to employ a nanny, or else place the child with a grandmother or another relative up to the age of three years when mothers return to employment. However there are no official statistics on employment of nannies, and it is safe to say that the majority are currently being employed illegally.

9. The term ‘child-care system’ or “preschool education system” is applied to provision for children between the ages of one and seven years of age. • The ‘school sector’ is that which serves the needs of children and young people between the ages of seven and nineteen years of age.

10. Kindergartens provide both educational and full-day child-care services. Educational law prescribes that every child between 6-7 years of age has a right, if the parents wish, both to day-care and to ‘pre-school’ education. Pre-school education is a preparation for the school. It is highly recommended, though not compulsory for children who have not previously attended a kindergarten.

11. Example of kindergarten: Kindergarten “Peledziukas” is founded by Vilnius region municipality. It is situated outside Vilnius in the village. It provides childcare and education services for children from 3-7 years old. It is open from 7 a.m. until 5.30 p.m. from Monday till Friday during a whole year.

12. Every day in the Kindergarten has the same structure: educational program in the morning, rest (sleep) in the afternoon, play time outdoors or indoors twice a day usually before lunch and dinner.

13. The aims for the educational program (curriculum) slightly differs for different ages, they are oriented towards social, emotional, physical and cognitive child development: Creativity and arts e.g. singing, dancing, painting, making crafts etc. Social skills e.g. communication, cooperation, politeness, relating to other children and adults etc. Physical development e.g. sports, games outdoors etc. Cognitive skills e.g. concentration of the attention for some period of the time, abilities to stick on to the task (begin and to finish), getting used to the time structure, introduction to the world of numbers and letters etc.

14. There are four meals served during the day, they all are freshly cooked in the kindergartens kitchen. Kindergarten has two separate halls for sport and music (singing and dancing) activities.

15. Premises of kindergarten are used by different children hobby groups such as classical and modern dance, art, basketball and others. According parents wishes administration is inviting part time educators to run those hobby groups and parents pay for them.

16. Every year staff of the kindergarten is organizing celebrations of Christmas, Shrove Tuesday, Easter, Family day and festivals such as folk singing and dancing, summer and winter sports. Some of them are organised only for children, some of them – for children and parents together.

17. Integrated services: We already have integrated child care and early childhood education services Further step towards service integration was integration of childcare-educational and psychological help and social work services for the families.

18. Kindergarten “Peledziukas” was participating in EQUAL project “FORWARD: Reconciliation of family and work” since autumn 2005. The aim was to help parents to reconcile family and work responsibilities, so it has been introduced prolonged working hours so since 2005 Kindergarten has one group which was open from 5.30 p.m. until 7 a.m. The need for those working hours was revealed by questioning parents, as some of them were working in night shifts, some of them were working in Vilnius city till late evening and have no other possibilities for the childcare.

19. In the frame of the project psychological help and social work services has been introduced in the kindergarten. Kindergarten have employed professional psychologist and social worker to work with families and children if it was needed Professionals educators, psychologist, social workers had to cooperate and work together, to make the best service they could. They have been cooperating by sharing some information and looking for the solutions of some family issues.

20. Parents could get personal psychological consultancy, and psychologist ran self help groups, where parents were discussing different issues such as relationships inside the family, management of children problematic behaviour and others

21. Social worker was working as a case manager, he evaluated needs and problems within the family, together with parents (or one of them) made intervention plan, met with parents regularly and discussed with them steps which had to be or had been taken to improve situation, evaluated changes.

22. Training of the childcare workers: Professional qualification of preschool pedagogue Qualification can be obtained in high school - college level diploma or University (pedagogical university) - bachelor and master degrees

23. In service training: All preschool pedagogues have to spent certain amount of hours for in service training, take part in the projects share experiences with colleagues

24. Every five years they have to go through process of attestation So they have kind of hierochy according their experience in the field

25. Thinking of integration of education, psychological and social work services It has been introduced a special training for the preschool pedagogues: Introduction to social work; Understand family reasons of children behavior; Cooperation skills with other professionals in helping process; Special training on the development of children social competencies.

26. Integration of childcare and educational services secures stability, routine of the day, continuity, consistency regarding developmental needs which gives children a feeling of safety. Parents are less stressed they don’t need worry if they find child care and education providers closely located to each other, if they need to take child from one place to another in the middle of the day. Childcare workers and/or educators have good possibilities to follow (observe) children in different activities during the day, to recognize developmental, educational and other children needs and to meet them.

27. Further step towards service integration is integration of childcare-educational and psychological help and social work services for the families. This kind of integration is most important for disadvantaged families and their children. By helping parents to solve their psychological, social, children upbringing, relationships and other like problems we improve developmental environment or circumstances for the children. Different professionals such as childcare educators, psychologists, social workers and others working in the same organization have good possibilities for a team work in helping families and case management, e.g., educator observes changes in child’s behaviour and reports it to the others. Parents become not just better parents, but better employees as well. The society will profit from a good investment in the long run well educated, positive and economically active persons will get jobs, be good or productive workers.

28. Thank you for your attention • What would you like to discuss? • Who would like to begin?

32. Design Involve two repeated measurements and comparison of the results: the first measurement at the beginning and the second measurement at the end of the project; from two target groups: • Parents • Children

33. Data collection methods • Interview survey: Respondents parents Done by professional interviewers • Quantitative observation: Subjects of observation – children Observers – preschool educators (each child both times was evaluated by two educators)

34. Measurement instruments Parents questionnaire composed of • Open ended and closed ended questions • Nominal and ordinal measures Children’s social competences evaluation checklist composed of • Statements with Likert type scaling: from 1 meaning almost never, to 5 meaning almost always

35. Children’s social competences evaluation checklist The objective was to evaluate changes of children social competences. Social competences divided into four areas: • Politeness; • Communication with peers; • Communication with adults; • Emotional competence: ability to express and control emotions. Each area had from 4 to 8 separate empirical indicators.

36. Parent’s questionnaire • žinoti ikimokyklinės įstaigos gyvenimo ir valdymo dėsningumus; • gebėti dirbi komandoje.

37. Tobulindamas profesinę kompetenciją • visapusiškai lavintis ir turtinti savo asmenybę; • gebėti tobulėti ir keistis kūrybiškai reaguojant į šiuolaikinio pasaulio pokyčius ir siekiant būti aktyviu pokyčių dalyviu.