抄録
In this paper, the situation of outing childcare (childcare in public spaces) was examined targeting the small-scale childcare bases and authorized nurseries. We also compared the evaluations and needs of the urban environment based on children' s age and head-count, though the investigation of different type of bases that are located in the same region and their area of outing are overlapping.
The major findings are as follows:
1) Outing childcare is routine at any kind of childcare establishment, children and caregivers are outing every day from the bases of family like babysitters and authenticated nurseries. Although the total time of outing childcare is longest at authorized nurseries, children and caregiver are outing airily in a short time at small scale-childcare basis.
2) Taking advantage of the urban environment greatly enriches the quality of childcare, as caregivers report that it operates “to relieve children' s stress, ” “to have experience that outside of a room, ” and “to learn public rules” as the significance and purpose of outing childcare.
3) The most prominent activity for family-like babysitters involves walking. For this reason, enriching the environments with paths, such as walkways and promenades, is effective in improving the quality of childcare. In the case of authenticated nurseries, children and caregivers often stay at a distance of around 300 to 400 meters from their base. Therefore, it is desirable that there are destinations such as appropriately scaled parks within this distance range. In addition, in the case of the authorized nursery, in cases where it is difficult for children and caregivers to stop during movement on the street, then outing childcare may be positioned as an opportunity to learn the public rules.
4) Different Parks or places are selected depending on children' s ages and the type of bases that use the same area as the place of outing childcare. It is considered that the target age of equipment in the park and the probability to use there with children of various ages are effectively and properly utilizing urban space.
5) Based on the caregivers' environmental evaluation at the time of outing childcare, the comments on “nature, animals” and “presence of play location” are large in any base type. Since the comments regarding “childcare value” of the urban environmental elements has the highest mention rate in the authorized nurseries, it can be said that unique value is placed on outing childcare is more common.
6) The mention rate of “ease of movement” is the same between the authenticated nurseries and family-like babysitters, and “safety” is especially high in authenticated nurseries. In this way, we confirmed that there is a difference in the point of view of the urban environment evaluation depending on the type of base.
Given these findings, the authors find it important to authorize and assess the children' s age and head-count and the corresponding surrounding environment when the bases establishing. Further, during the maintenance and updating of urban spaces, it should be considered what kind of childcare bases will be established by the municipality. Then the urban environment will be more efficiently enhanced the value as a place for childcare. For example, it is important to more greatly prioritize promenade maintenance and policy to enhance small-scale childcare bases, and to support the proper use of locations by setting different equipment at each park based on target age or occupancy instead with uniformly.
