A profile of childminding: implications for planning

After friends and relatives, childminders are the most common form of child care. This paper reports the results from a postal survey of a nationally representative sample of over 1,000 childminders. Results are reported concerning childminders' training and employment histories, working conditions, motivation, commitment and satisfaction with their work. Two groups of childminders emerge; a group where childminding may be a passing phase in their employment career and a group who consider it as a long‐term career. The findings are discussed with reference to the aims of the National Childcare Strategy and the role of Early Years Development and Childcare Partnerships. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Informing ourselves about early childhood services

Using a range of examples, the paper argues that there is an information deficit concerning early childhood services; even on the most basic issues, there is either no information or such information as does exists is unreliable, limited or outdated. This matters because information is a necessary condition for good policy, for open and democratic decision making and for giving visibility to young children. The article concludes by considering how an adequate information system might be developed based on annual returns from individual services and regular surveys of households with children.     

Survey of midwives’ perinatal mental health knowledge,confidence, attitudes and learning needs

Background

Midwives have a primary role in facilitating the first stage of perinatal mental health risk reduction through inquiring about perinatal mental health, identifying risk factors and current perinatal mental health problems, providing support or crisis intervention, referring for treatment and decreasing stigmatisation.

Editorial: special edition on probabilistic numerics

Statistics and Computing -     

DFID governance programming in Nigeria: What difference has thinking and working politically made in practice?

The UK Department for International Development's country office in Nigeria (DFID Nigeria) has gradually adopted a thinking and working politically (TWP) approach in its governance programming. The initial focus on strengthening analysis has progressively been linked to discussion about the country and programme strategy, as well as programme‐management practices. Important lessons can be learned from this experience on how the TWP approach can be applied in practice. The article addresses three research questions: (1) To what extent have DFID Nigeria and its governance programmes adopted a TWP approach? (2) How has the TWP approach influenced the design and delivery of programming? (3) Has the application of the TWP approach enhanced the results of the DFID governance programming? Using project documentation and wider theoretical literature, but mainly relying on extensive participant observation within DFID Nigeria programmes, the article uses a historical perspective to outline how the TWP approach has been applied in Nigeria over 15 years of programme design, delivery, lesson‐learning and refinement . Published evaluation reports are used to provide evidence of programme results. DFID Nigeria and its programmes have progressively adopted TWP principles. This has led to clear changes in country strategy and programme design, as well as programme‐management practices. There is some evidence that the adoption of these principles has enhanced the results of DFID Nigeria programmes. By focusing on experimentation and “small bets,” TWP has proven relatively successful in generating and supporting ‘islands of effectiveness,’ but has had more limited impact in terms of generating more systemic, transformational change. The results obtained in Nigeria using the TWP approach have depended not only on Nigeria's political economy but also on the political economy of the development agency and donor country. DFID Nigeria's ability to engage in critical self‐reflection and to create an authorizing environment for risk‐taking have been vital to create enabling conditions for the TWP approach. However, other aspects of DFID and the UK's political economy are creating constraints that limit the prospects to go further and to go deeper in adopting the principles of TWP.     

The practical utility of the Welch Emotional Connection Screen for rating parent–infant relational health

Emotional Connection (EC) measured by the Welch Emotional Connection Screen (WECS) was related to the Parent–Infant Interaction Rating System (PIIRS), a 5‐point adaptation of the rating system developed for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (e.g., NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 1999, Developmental Psychology, 35, 1399). Parent–infant dyads (n = 49 mothers; 43 fathers) were videotaped during face‐to‐face interaction at infant age 6 months; interactions were coded with both the WECS and PIIRS. At age 3, mothers completed the Child Behavior Checklist. WECS ratings of EC were associated with PIIRS rating items for both mother–infant and father–infant dyads. Mother–infant EC related positively to maternal sensitivity and positive regard for child, child positive mood and sustained attention, and dyadic mutuality, and negatively with maternal intrusiveness. Father–infant EC related positively to fathers' positive regard for child, child positive mood and sustained attention, and dyadic mutuality. Mother–infant EC predicted child behavior problems at age 3 better than mother–infant PIIRS ratings of dyadic mutuality. With fathers, neither EC nor dyadic mutuality ratings predicted mother‐reported child behavior problems. Findings highlight the practical utility of the WECS for identifying potentially at‐risk dyads and supporting early relational health.     

What Explains the Rural-Urban Gap in Infant Mortality: Household or Community Characteristics?

The rural-urban gap in infant mortality rates is explained by using a new decomposition method that permits identification of the contribution of unobserved heterogeneity at the household and the community level. Using Demographic and Health Survey data for six Francophone countries in Central and West sub-Saharan Africa, we find that differences in the distributions of factors that determine mortality-not differences in their effects-explain almost the entire gap. Higher infant mortality rates in rural areas mainly derive from the rural disadvantage in household characteristics, both observed and unobserved, which explain two-thirds of the gap. Among the observed characteristics, environmental factors-a safe source of drinking water, electricity, and quality of housing materials-are the most important contributors. Community characteristics explain less than onequarter of the gap, with about two-thirds of this coming from community unobserved heterogeneity and one-third from the existence of a health facility within the community. The effect of disadvantageous environmental conditions-such as limited electricity and water supply-derives both from a lack of community-level infrastructure and from the inability of some households to exploit it when available. Policy needs to operate at both the community and household levels to correct such deficiencies.