There seems to be a lack of research information about the processes and practices of early childhood education and care for children from birth to three (David et al, 2003). This gap in research knowledge is particularly evident in relation to the specific field of work with babies from birth to 12 months, in varying forms of daycare.
Although the increase in maternity leave seems to have resulted in a drop in the numbers of very young babies being looked after outside the home, Unicef (2009) has reported that around 18 per cent of babies under 12 months in England are in some form of daycare provision; and this is often for a large part of the working week. Accordingly, we have focused on exactly that age group in the Baby Room Project, our latest research initiative.
USE IT OR LOSE IT
With all the advances in technology and the new use of neuro-imaging procedures, much more is now known - thanks to research by neuroscientists - about brain activity, growth and development. This is increasingly useful in informing the kinds of care and support necessary for healthy babies.
What seems to be clear from this kind of research is that babies' brains are incredibly active and thirsty for interaction and activities - which in turn fosters further learning and brain development (David et al, 2003).
As we develop, our brains are said to work on the 'use-it-or-lose-it' principle (Greenfield, 2000). That is, as with any other muscle, our brains strengthen with activity or weaken without. Significantly, we now know that the brains of babies are shaped by experience.
This early stage of brain growth, from birth, and the experiences and encounters that influence it, often take place in out-of-home settings, in nurseries and daycare and in designated rooms in those settings - in other words, the baby room.
The practitioners working with the babies in their care have a huge professional responsibility to do so in loving and appropriate ways. Yet in our research we have found that those practitioners are often overlooked in relation to support and professional-development opportunities.
NATTERING ON THE NING
In our project, we are working with a small group of local baby room practitioners to look at what they are doing with babies and to understand why they might be practising in particular ways in their settings. This group comes together for development sessions, but has also agreed to observations being carried out and to short films being made of its interactions with babies.
As the project progresses, discussions about, for example, sleep or nappy-changing practices have become lively and engaging. To further help the practitioners swap ideas and question their own and others' ways of working, we have provided them with a netbook and created a social networking site (or 'Ning') for them to chat online to each other.
A key feature of this project is to provide opportunities for our colleagues working in baby rooms not only to look inward at their own practice but also to look outward and around, for ideas, affirmation, challenge and research evidence.
SHANGHAI SYNERGY
The project is providing a mass of interesting data, but to support our own knowledge development - and hopefully to provide a practitioner network link there - we have also been able to visit Shanghai, China, to look at some innovative family support practices with parents, grandparents and babies in a family centre that opened in 2005.
We took with us film of one of our settings and information about the project and its Ning to share with our Chinese colleagues. In turn, we were offered unlimited access to the family centre, with and without families, and to some in-service seminars with practitioners across the region.
Seeking out other examples of practice from elsewhere in the world is enormously useful, as it helps us reflect on similarities and differences and also on why we practise in the way that we do. For example, with the new emphasis on the use of toys and resources made from natural materials, our colleagues in Shanghai were interested in the fact that colour seemed to be missing from the baby rooms.
This kind of practitioner reflection provides the perfect opportunity to question our motives and the rationale for developments that sometimes emerge from research and sometimes from other influences.
Opportunities to observe and learn from colleagues across international borders are rare, but when they occur there is much to ponder, for example in relation to cultural and policy differences. With our colleagues in the project's nurseries, the Shanghai experience is one we are hoping to frequently revisit via the video material - but also to build upon when we arrange a reciprocal visit to our own settings in the near future.
STAND BACK AND REFLECT
Our Baby Room Project is nearing the end of its year-long funding and we are beginning to analyse and report on the findings. The most significant element of our learning is that the project has confirmed that while we know that practitioners working in nurseries find it difficult to access professional development during the working week, those in baby rooms seem to be, and feel themselves to be, a completely overlooked community.
Baby room practitioners, in common with all of those caring for young children, work extremely hard and for long hours. In some very small nurseries there may be one adult caring alone for three babies for most of the working day - an enormous mental and physical challenge.
Opportunities to stand back and reflect on practice are extremely rare and indeed frequently non-existent. And yet this sort of reflection is crucial to professional development, to careful consideration of all elements of practice, to the questioning of routines and to the professional engagement of practitioners in their everyday responsibilities.
One of the practitioners in our project talked about how it had helped her to 'helicopter above' the work she did with babies to better see what was happening and why. Another spoke about how it had caused her to think about the 'good babies' and how little time she perhaps gave them compared to others who were more demanding in a number of ways.
A member of the group raised the point that parents, mothers, were handing over to them the 'most precious thing in their world' and what a huge responsibility it was. Some practitioners talked about parents who were worried that the practitioner was too young to trust with their babies and how that made the practitioner feel.
On our Ning, the social network site, many practitioners have described 'A day in the life of a baby room practitioner' and compared and contrasted routines and rituals; someone wryly commented that everybody had to do the same things and yet they did them differently.
Conversations have begun on the Ning about the storage of breast milk, observations and the demands of record keeping, sleep routines, child protection and practitioner protection. Links to other useful sites are facilitated through the Ning and everyone can contribute to the discussions and has equal access.
One thing we have learned is the enormous need for this group to talk to one another - to share understandings and worries, to tell how constraints can be overcome, to gain a perspective on the demands of policy, parents, managers, local authorities and Ofsted - all with a stake in the success of baby rooms.
Significantly, we have learned how important it is for our project group to feel the enormous importance of the professional responsibility they hold. We believe that it is through access to professional development programmes, properly designed and managed to allow practice, research and policy to be effectively mediated and considered, that baby room practice can achieve the high status it deserves.
Further information
David, T, Goouch, K, Powell, S and Abbott, L (2003) Birth to Three Matters: a Review of the Literature. RR444. Nottingham, DfES Publications. Available online at: http://www.education.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/RR444.pdf
Dr Kathy Goouch is senior lecturer in education and Dr Sacha Powell is a principal research fellow in the department of educational research, Canterbury Christ Church University. The Baby Room Project was funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation.