Child care centers are becoming much more influential in educating and caring for children because more and more families choose supplemental care for their young children in child development programs. In June 1997, Child and Adult Food Program (CACFP) served nearly 2.2 million children and provided meals to 2.6 million children in March 1998. A large number of children eat at least one and sometimes two or more of their meals at child care centers. It is imperative that nutritious and satisfying meals and snacks are served at child care centers. The purpose of this study was to examine menus planned in Head Start Program and Child Day Care Centers in Virginia and to assess if they meet the national Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) standards for vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium and iron. Lunch menus for 3-5 year old children were collected from 114 CACFP staffs attending a state wide CACFP menu training session. Fifty-seven weekly menus were selected based on geographic representation to analyze vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium and iron levels by a nutritional analysis computer program. Menus were also divided into Head Start Program and Child Day Care Center for further analysis and comparison. For all 57 sites, the mean values of these lunches exceeded the one-third RDAs for vitamin A, vitamin C, and calcium; the average percentages were 198%, 121% and 134%, respectively. But the average iron level was only 63% RDAs. None of the child care centers met 100% of one-third RDAs for the lunch menus. Because dietary iron levels are consistently low, iron food sources were studied. The results showed no significant (p< 0.05) difference between the Head Start Program and Child Day Care Center. Based on the findings of this study, following the established meal pattern guidelines for the child nutrition programs did not guarantee adequate iron levels in the planned menus of the child care centers. Some foods with high iron levels should be used more often. Further research is needed for this population in implementing the appropriate dietary guideline. In addition, the menu planing, food purchasing and preparation should be part of the training programs for child care centers. / Master of Science

<p>Despite remarkable strides being made in legislation in South Africa, the country still faces immense challenges which directly impact on the care and protection of its children. Many children are removed from their families and placed into alternative care because of high risk factors in the family and community. However, because of the socioeconomic<br /> situations of families, many of these children will not be able to return to their family. It is, therefore, essential that in the residential care programme, efforts are directed towards permanency planning for each child in order to ensure long term placement in a family. The host parent programme which has been introduced at Child and Youth Care Centres (CYCCs) acts as a precursor to foster-care placements. Following on this, host parents provide the child in need of care with opportunities to interact and form positive relationships with adult caregivers. This study has explored and described, by means of qualitative research, the experiences of host parents who accommodated children in need of care. Nine host parents were purposively selected from three participating CYCCs in Athlone, Cape Town. Data was collected by means of semi-structured individual interviews. The data was analysed according to the steps by Tesch in Creswell (2009). The findings suggest that host parents are instrumental to those children who cannot return to their natural families. The host parents&rsquo / interaction with the CYCC was both positive and negative at times. Recommendations and guidelines in order to develop and improve existing hosting programmes at CYCC&rsquo / s are provided.</p>

A concluding thesis by Jurgita Valuntonienė, postgraduate of Vilnius Pedagogic University, Social Pedagogy Department, named “Children Day Care Center as an educational institution (its experience in Belgium)”. Day Centers offer care for children during the day time and other additional services in order to satisfy the main children’s needs which are not given by the family. The other aim is to support the family by developing maternity and paternity skills and put them into practice at home. Children Day Care Centers and their activities in Lithuania prevent children from negative social conditions, satisfy their needs and give a possibility for a family to get some social services. It can be stated that services provided for children and their families at Day Care Centers conform to alternative ward ship. It is gradually being tried to improve the activity of Children Day Care centers and to enlarge the number of services it can offer. One of the Children Day Care center’s priorities is the qualification of its workers. But after the comparison of analogical centers in Belgium and in Lithuania, it was noticed that our country has less volunteers willing to offer their help and work in these institutions. Furthermore, after the comparative analysis it was evident that age interval of children who use the service of these institutions is much wider in Belgium than in Lithuania (from 3 to 14 years). The service of these centers is payable in Belgium even though the price... [to full text]

<p>Despite remarkable strides being made in legislation in South Africa, the country still faces immense challenges which directly impact on the care and protection of its children. Many children are removed from their families and placed into alternative care because of high risk factors in the family and community. However, because of the socioeconomic<br /> situations of families, many of these children will not be able to return to their family. It is, therefore, essential that in the residential care programme, efforts are directed towards permanency planning for each child in order to ensure long term placement in a family. The host parent programme which has been introduced at Child and Youth Care Centres (CYCCs) acts as a precursor to foster-care placements. Following on this, host parents provide the child in need of care with opportunities to interact and form positive relationships with adult caregivers. This study has explored and described, by means of qualitative research, the experiences of host parents who accommodated children in need of care. Nine host parents were purposively selected from three participating CYCCs in Athlone, Cape Town. Data was collected by means of semi-structured individual interviews. The data was analysed according to the steps by Tesch in Creswell (2009). The findings suggest that host parents are instrumental to those children who cannot return to their natural families. The host parents&rsquo / interaction with the CYCC was both positive and negative at times. Recommendations and guidelines in order to develop and improve existing hosting programmes at CYCC&rsquo / s are provided.</p>

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:30:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2007-03-23Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:00:43Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 tashima_nt_dr_arafcf.pdf: 1639832 bytes, checksum: 4ebbfa8c2c4802ba76fbdfe822f9a1f3 (MD5) / Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) / O estudo epidemiológico da giardíase empregando técnicas moleculares, como o RAPD (Randomly Amplified Polimorphic DNA), fornece subsídio para identificação dos fatores de transmissão da G. lamblia. Este trabalho teve como objetivo estudar a epidemiologia da G. lamblia em uma creche infantil de Presidente Bernardes, SP, Brasil, no ano de 2006, por meio de um inquérito epidemiológico e tipagem molecular das cepas isoladas empregando a técnica de RAPD. A análise dos perfis genéticos obtidos foi realizada com auxílio de um dendrograma de similaridade obtido pelo programa Gel Compar II versão 2.0 para Windows (Applied MATHS). Foram realizados exames parasitológicos de fezes de 101 crianças freqüentadoras da creche infantil. A partir desses exames, 15 amostras que apresentavam cistos de G. lamblia foram purificadas para posterior extração do DNA. Os pais e irmãos das 15 crianças parasitadas, assim como os cães de estimação e também dos funcionários da creche tiveram suas fezes coletadas para posterior exame parasitológico. Das mesmas extraíram-se DNA das amostras que apresentavam cistos de G. lamblia. Entre as 31 amostras positivas para G. lamblia obtida entre as crianças e seus respectivos pais e irmãos, concluiu-se que a transmissão do parasita ocorreu entre as crianças provavelmente no convívio da creche, mas não no convívio familiar. / Epidemiological studies on giardiasis by using molecular techniques such as RAPD (Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA) give information on factors related to the transmission of G. lamblia. The aim of this work was to assess the G. lamblia epidemiology in a day care center in Presidente Bernardes, SP, Brazil, in 2006, by means of an epidemiological inquiry and molecular typing of the isolated strains by using the RAPD technique. The genetic profiles were analyzed by means of a dendrogram of similarity obtained with the software Gel Compar II v. 2.0 for Windows (Applied MATHS). Parasitological examinations were made on feces samples taken from 101 children attended in the day care center. After examinations, 15 samples that presented G. lamblia cysts were purified for further DNA extraction. The respective relatives and brothers of the 15 children, in addition to their pets and the day care center s workers had their feces collected for further parasitological examination. Samples in which G. lamblia cysts were found were also submitted to DNA extraction. Among the 31 samples positive for G. lamblia obtained from the children and their respective parents and brothers, it was concluded that the transmission of the parasite occurred between children probably during the cohabitation in the day care center, but not inside the family.

Este trabalho investigou o envolvimento de pais de bebês nos seis primeiros meses de frequência à creche. Baseado no conceito de envolvimento paterno, buscou-se investigar as transformações na interação, disponibilidade e responsabilidade dos pais sobre seus bebês com a entrada na creche. Para tanto, por meio de um estudo de caso coletivo de caráter longitudinal, quatro pais responderam a entrevistas em três momentos de coleta de dados, a saber: entrada do bebê na creche, um mês após a entrada e 6 meses após o ingresso na escola de educação infantil. Análise de conteúdo qualitativa indicou que tanto a creche quanto o desenvolvimento do bebê foram aliados do pai para a retomada do trabalho e da vida pessoal. O pai passou a interagir menos de acordo com os aspectos maternos da interação, uma exigência que vai muitas vezes além das suas capacidades. O presente estudo mostra a importância de se levar em consideração as necessidades e capacidades do pai que está envolvido no cuidado ao bebê. / This study investigated father involvement with their babies during the first six months in a child care center. Based on the concept of father involvement, we aimed to investigate the changes in fathers’ interaction, availability and responsibility concerning their babies over time. To this end, through a collective case study, with a longitudinal design, four fathers answered an interview in three times of data collection: entry in the child care center, one month and six months later. Qualitative content analysis indicated that the day care center and the baby's development helped the father to turn more to his work and to recover his personal life. The father was able to interact less according to the maternal aspects of the interaction, which may be beyond his capacity. The present study shows the importance of taking into consideration the needs and capacity of fathers involved in infant care.

Este trabalho investigou o envolvimento de pais de bebês nos seis primeiros meses de frequência à creche. Baseado no conceito de envolvimento paterno, buscou-se investigar as transformações na interação, disponibilidade e responsabilidade dos pais sobre seus bebês com a entrada na creche. Para tanto, por meio de um estudo de caso coletivo de caráter longitudinal, quatro pais responderam a entrevistas em três momentos de coleta de dados, a saber: entrada do bebê na creche, um mês após a entrada e 6 meses após o ingresso na escola de educação infantil. Análise de conteúdo qualitativa indicou que tanto a creche quanto o desenvolvimento do bebê foram aliados do pai para a retomada do trabalho e da vida pessoal. O pai passou a interagir menos de acordo com os aspectos maternos da interação, uma exigência que vai muitas vezes além das suas capacidades. O presente estudo mostra a importância de se levar em consideração as necessidades e capacidades do pai que está envolvido no cuidado ao bebê. / This study investigated father involvement with their babies during the first six months in a child care center. Based on the concept of father involvement, we aimed to investigate the changes in fathers’ interaction, availability and responsibility concerning their babies over time. To this end, through a collective case study, with a longitudinal design, four fathers answered an interview in three times of data collection: entry in the child care center, one month and six months later. Qualitative content analysis indicated that the day care center and the baby's development helped the father to turn more to his work and to recover his personal life. The father was able to interact less according to the maternal aspects of the interaction, which may be beyond his capacity. The present study shows the importance of taking into consideration the needs and capacity of fathers involved in infant care.

Este trabalho investigou o envolvimento de pais de bebês nos seis primeiros meses de frequência à creche. Baseado no conceito de envolvimento paterno, buscou-se investigar as transformações na interação, disponibilidade e responsabilidade dos pais sobre seus bebês com a entrada na creche. Para tanto, por meio de um estudo de caso coletivo de caráter longitudinal, quatro pais responderam a entrevistas em três momentos de coleta de dados, a saber: entrada do bebê na creche, um mês após a entrada e 6 meses após o ingresso na escola de educação infantil. Análise de conteúdo qualitativa indicou que tanto a creche quanto o desenvolvimento do bebê foram aliados do pai para a retomada do trabalho e da vida pessoal. O pai passou a interagir menos de acordo com os aspectos maternos da interação, uma exigência que vai muitas vezes além das suas capacidades. O presente estudo mostra a importância de se levar em consideração as necessidades e capacidades do pai que está envolvido no cuidado ao bebê. / This study investigated father involvement with their babies during the first six months in a child care center. Based on the concept of father involvement, we aimed to investigate the changes in fathers’ interaction, availability and responsibility concerning their babies over time. To this end, through a collective case study, with a longitudinal design, four fathers answered an interview in three times of data collection: entry in the child care center, one month and six months later. Qualitative content analysis indicated that the day care center and the baby's development helped the father to turn more to his work and to recover his personal life. The father was able to interact less according to the maternal aspects of the interaction, which may be beyond his capacity. The present study shows the importance of taking into consideration the needs and capacity of fathers involved in infant care.

Magister Artium (Social Work) - MA(SW) / Despite remarkable strides being made in legislation in South Africa, the country still faces immense challenges which directly impact on the care and protection of its children. Many children are removed from their families and placed into alternative care because of high risk factors in the family and community. However, because of the socioeconomic situations of families, many of these children will not be able to return to their family. It is, therefore, essential that in the residential care programme, efforts are directed towards permanency planning for each child in order to ensure long term placement in a family. The host parent programme which has been introduced at Child and Youth Care Centres (CYCCs) acts as a precursor to foster-care placements. Following on this, host parents provide the child in need of care with opportunities to interact and form positive relationships with adult caregivers. This study has explored and described, by means of qualitative research, the experiences of host parents who accommodated children in need of care. Nine host parents were purposively selected from three participating CYCCs in Athlone, Cape Town. Data was collected by means of semi-structured individual interviews. The data was analysed according to the steps by Tesch in Creswell (2009). The findings suggest that host parents are instrumental to those children who cannot return to their natural families. The host parents’ interaction with the CYCC was both positive and negative at times. Recommendations and guidelines in order to develop and improve existing hosting programmes at CYCC’s are provided. / South Africa