Executive Summary

Background

The SPACE programme (Supporting Parents Alongside Children's Education) at Te Marua/Mangaroa Playcentre is an early childhood Centre of Innovation (COI). The early childhood COI programme is part of the New Zealand Government's 10-year plan for early childhood education policy: Pathways to the Future/Ngā Huarahi Arataki (Ministry of Education, 2002).

COIs are required to design and undertake action research and to disseminate the findings. SPACE is an innovative new programme developed within the Hutt Playcentre Association, predominantly for first-time parents with newborn babies. The SPACE programme aims:

1. To support parents in their role as the best and most important educators of their children through:

   • Providing them with support and encouragement from other participants in the group and from experienced facilitators, as they share the journey through their child's early months.
   • Giving parents an opportunity to listen to and develop links with, a range of community organisations and service providers.

2. To increase participation of children in Early Childhood Education at an early age, provide a quality curriculum, and maximise children's learning from birth.

This COI team (Te Marua/Mangaroa Playcentre's SPACE programme) carried out a 3-year action research project to show how the centre's innovative practices influence learning and teaching. The research addressed two key research questions:

1. How does the SPACE programme, implemented at Te Marua/Mangaroa Playcentre for new parents and infants, support and foster their learning?
2. How does the SPACE team and programme, together with Te Marua/Mangaroa Playcentre, network and support collaborative relationships?

At Te Marua/Mangaroa Playcentre two cycles of action research were completed between 2005 and 2007.  Action research tools included observations, parent interviews, facilitator reflections and crosss-sectoral consultations (interviews and a focus group).

Key Findings

Research Question 1: How does the SPACE programme, implemented at Te Marua/Mangaroa Playcentre for new parents and infants, support and foster their learning?

Some main themes and findings from the observations and interviews in action research cycles 1 and 2 are summarised below.

Supporting Relationships and Interactions

This theme includes the interactions among parents, infants, speakers, and facilitators and other members of the COI team.  Key findings were, for example:

Participating in the SPACE programme overcomes the feelings of isolation that can overwhelm first time mothers and develops the shared understanding that is evident in the way both parents and infants contribute to, and participate in, the group sessions. These findings are supported by data from the focus group which concluded that 'good' parenting skills were beneficial in the long term;

Infants actively sought interactions with others in addition to their parent. This included their peers and other adults;

Over time, the relationships developed, as participants become familiar with one another and infants and adults actively sought each other out. In addition, parents began to know and respond to the characteristics, personalities, and interests of one another's infants.

Facilitating Environments

This includes both the physical environment (equipment, layout, artefacts) of the centre setting, and the social environment associated with the SPACE sessions. Findings included:

Recognising that the environment was an aspect of the programme that played a key role in fostering interactions and relationships;

The COI team observed the physical environment, the impact of how the centre was set up, and what changes were needed for the SPACE session to support and foster parents' and infants' learning.

Fostering Holistic Learning

The holistic approach in the SPACE programme includes: learning through exploration; learning within the group; encouraging new experiences; following and extending learning, and fostering child initiated play.  Fostering holistic learning occurred as a result of shared activities which were part of the SPACE programme at Te Marua/Mangaroa Playcentre. For example:

Parents were supported to become actively involved in new play experiences with their own infants, other infants, other parents, and facilitators.  One new experience offered at the Playcentre was messy play.

Connecting Families and Communities

This theme focuses on the connections made by SPACE facilitators, by the participating parents themselves, and by other agencies that were contributors to the SPACE sessions:

Practical information shared during the SPACE sessions about resources had an impact on what parents offered their infants at home.

• There were connections between the SPACE programme at Te Marua/Mangaroa Playcentre and the wider community. As parents grew confident within the SPACE group, they brought new ideas to share within the group.

Tools and artefacts

The use of a variety of tools and artefacts influenced learning within the group. Tools and artefacts used during the SPACE session included: equipment, facilitation strategies including icebreakers that developed rapport in a group or SPACE session, and music. Infants (often aged as young as 6 months) responded actively to music during the course of the SPACE sessions. Observations, facilitator reflections, and parent interviews all showed that music worked as a tool to foster interactions among parents and infants. The use of storybooks also encouraged interactions among parents and infants and fostered their learning. Numerous observations showed infants becoming more engaged over time during storybook readings at the SPACE sessions.

Community of Learners and Inquiry, Transformation of Participation

Parents' participation became transformed during the 30 weeks of the SPACE programme. This was apparent across the observations, reflective comments from the researchers, and the parent interviews.  Over time, the facilitators gradually but warmly and actively encouraged more participation from the parents, but at the same time accepted differences in the types of participation.  At the beginning of the SPACE programme, some participants were shy and self-conscious.  Facilitators encouraged parents to contribute to the SPACE sessions. They employed a range of strategies (or tools) such as icebreakers, which supported contributions from the parents.  Rather than positioning themselves as experts, and parents as the novices, facilitators viewed all as participants in a community of learners (Rogoff, 1998).  They were open to including contributions from parents and acknowledged their skills.

The following model represents the socio-cultural ideas that informed the findings. Transformation of participation and shared understanding were processes that contributed to building communities of inquirers.  This process was cyclical and continuous, with each cycle strengthening the community of learners that included the COI research team, the parents, and their infants. The process led to further inquiry among the research team members and participants, all of whom contributed to how socio-cultural ideas applied to evaluating the innovation of the SPACE programme at Te Marua/Mangaroa Playcentre.

Figure 1: Transformation of Participation: A Conceptual Model

Note:

1. This shell model was conceived by Truus Dingemanse.

Research Question 2: How does the SPACE team and programme, together with Te Marua/Mangaroa Playcentre, network and support collaborative relationships?

Key themes analysed in relation to this second research question were:

Collaborative Support

This major theme included these subthemes: nurturing a culture of care, respecting parents, and valuing families and communities.  Examples included:

• The SPACE sessions were designed to foster a culture of care amongst all participants.  The discussion and sharing time provided an opportunity for parents to reflect critically on issues and practices that are relevant to parenting.  What has become evident during this research is the importance of role modelling. Parents acted as role models for one another. The facilitators and the guest speakers also became role models;
• Including more Māori and also Pacific families was advocated by several key informants from the health and social service agencies;
• There was important affirmation for SPACE as a centre-based group programme, drawing families from the community together as a group.

Communication across Sectors

This second major theme encompassed subthemes of: referrals, interactions across settings, and cross-sectoral content. The following examples were:

• Participants' interests, knowledge, and needs shaped the nature and direction of the programme.  This meant the content was adapted month by month to suit the interests of the participants, and drew on community resources and speakers, as well as expertise within the group.
• There were important findings related to interactions with early childhood services. For example, towards the end of the programme, participants were reflecting on, and discussing, what types of early childhood services they were planning to attend with their children;

Interactions took place between the SPACE sessions and other settings, for example: early childhood services, community groups, the wider community and the SPACE programme at a regional and national level. Research information from the COI informed the development of the SPACE programme nationally.

Ecological views

Ecological theories helped the COI team to understand how the different groups in the community contributed to infants' and parents' experiences.  Facilitators made decisions about the content of the SPACE sessions in consultation with parents, and other members of the research team. They consulted the wider community, and made changes to enhance the effectiveness of the programme. For example, based on parents' interests, guest speakers were invited and the weekly topics accommodated parents' requests.

As part of the research, and to support an intention of Pathways to the Future (Ministry of Education, 2002) collaboration across settings was clearly one of the benefits of the programme.  COI team members, together with the research associates, networked extensively. A strategy to maintain community links, and to inform the research was to appoint an advisory committee.  Members of this group were drawn from health, education and social service sectors.  One member commented:

To me SPACE is about connections and communities. The Te Marua/ Mangaroa SPACE COI project has forged a web of powerful and hopefully enduring connections between families, children, facilitators, the playcentre, and the researchers themselves. I believe a lack of the sense of belonging that a community creates is one of contemporary society's biggest weaknesses and one of the prime reasons for our increasing problems of abuse, violence and crime. SPACE builds communities and the importance of that cannot be overestimated. (Ella Kahu, member of the COI project advisory committee, personal communication, August 10, 2007)

Final Comments

The findings of the research affirmed the value of the SPACE programme at Te Marua/Mangaroa Playcentre for learning and collaboration. Members of the projects' advisory committee provided further insights on the research findings. One comment was, for example:

This project has created new and exciting communities of empowered people. The project team, beginning as Playcentre parents, is now a skilled and active force with enormous interest and potential in the area of educational research, particularly in the development of parenting skills. The parents have become seekers in their own right, with new understanding of their roles and new connections with their community.  The babies are active participants in their own learning.  The advisory team and the associated community agencies are still learning, and energised by the journey we have all been on and the infinite possibilities for its future benefit for children. (Helen Willberg, member COI project advisory committee, personal communication, August 10, 2007)

Participating parents supported the innovative idea of providing the SPACE programme for new parents and their infants in a group centre-based setting:

It's been really good. Just the fact of having people act as a sound board [to bounce] ideas off. (Parent exit interview, Action Research Cycle 2)

I would tell anybody who is pregnant now to join a SPACE session. I found it really empowering and it gave me confidence and Chris [her infant] loved it, and you know he's going to be empowered and get confidence if his mum is. The better I feel about being the parent, the more that he's going to get out of it.  (Parent interview, Action Research Cycle 2).