• Special day care
Need for special day care has increased in recent years, which is also evident from the
growth in development work. Identification of a need for special day care as early as
possible is one of the areas of development work. In addition, new means of working
are also being sought in municipalities by developing operating models, for example,
where a special care provider will co-operate with children, families, day-care staff
and other partners. The local authorities are developing co-operation between different
administrations in many ways and are promoting regional networking of different
parties in special day care. The flexible transition to school of children in need of special
care and education is one of the targets of development work. Some of the projects
focus on certain areas of special support, such as children’s linguistic and speech
disorders or hearing defects and also provide for children with autism and motion
disorders.
• Pre-school and initial education
This theme deals with co-operation projects between day care and school in terms of
planning, activities and facilities. The projects also concern those of pre-school and
initial education not tied to year classes, as well as those developing the pre-school
curriculum and content.
• Quality of day care
The quality of day care is seen as early childhood education and care stemming from
the needs of the child and the family. Content-related quality plays a central role in
the activities, but their productivity has also been taken into account. Sets of quality
indicators have been prepared on the basis of client surveys directed at parents and
children. Quality is also being enhanced by means of training.
• The various services of day care
This theme deals with the various child-care alternatives provided for families by day
care besides day-care centre activities, as well as their development, including family
day care, playgroup and play activities and experiments in evening care. The projects
also present the service projects of sparsely populated areas, shift, evening and parttime
care, as well as the service voucher experiment.
• A developing working community
The maintenance and development of vocational competence, work motivation and
interaction in the working community are emphasised in this theme, together with
staff training and occupational guidance. The nature of leadership in day care is becoming
increasingly administrative and extensive, which means that responsibilities
are distributed to teams of employees. New information and enthusiasm to develop
one’s own work are being sought from co-operation networks. There are also experiments
on results-based payment.