ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a training programme, Learning to Live Together (LtLT), developed in Israel for caregivers working with toddlers and pre-schoolers in childcare settings. The programme aims at articulating the role of the early childhood educator as a facilitator of socio-emotional competence of very young children. Participants in the programme learn how to transform the childcare setting into an environment in which children may acquire patterns of considerate, respectful and empathetic interpersonal relations. The programme was initially developed for untrained caregivers working with infants and toddlers in centre-based daycare or family daycare. It has also been disseminated for years to directors and supervisors of childcare settings as well as to coordinators and supervisors of intervention programmes for disadvantaged children.
As is the case in many other countries, the daycare system serving children under three years old in Israel is very different from the one serving pre-schoolers (aged three to six years). The two systems have different goals and different ministries set their policies. Pre-school for three-to six-year-old children comes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. All teachers are required to have college-based training in early childhood education. The system serves approximately 90 per cent of Israeli children. Daycare for zero-to three-year-old children comes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Employment. The major goal of this ministry is to encourage mothers of very young children to join the labour market. Hence, the emphasis is on offering a safe and healthy environment for children. The system’s secondary goal is to serve at-risk children in poor and/or immigrant families. Full-or half-day daycare is used by many parents for their very young children, partly because in many young families both parents are working and partly because many Israeli mothers believe their young children ‘enjoy being in the company of other children’.
