Abstract
On-site childcare providers are expected to engage in community-oriented child-rearing support activities and assume more advanced and diverse roles. In this context, the rapid dissemination of knowledge about developmental disabilities has made addressing the needs of so-called “children of concern,” those who draw attention or raise concerns among childcare providers, a particularly crucial issue in the field.
This study explored the need for clinical psychological support in childcare by engaging directly with providers and focusing on issues related to “children of concern." Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six frontline childcare providers (three nursery school teachers and three managers). Interview data were analyzed by text mining techniques using KH Coder, including hierarchical clusters, stratified co-occurrence networks, and correspondence analyses. The results of these analyses revealed a number of innovations used by childcare workers in their involvement with “children of concern” and their sense of distress when working with them. In addition, management staff showed support for resolving childcare workers’ concerns, especially in managing the collaboration among multiple job categories and other organizations within the facility. Based on the actual situation at the childcare facility, the following four points were identified as potential contributions of psychologists: (1) collaboration utilizing professional psychological assessment, (2) involvement and suggestions to parents, (3) collaboration with other organizations, and (4) consultation with childcare workers based on this psychological assessment.
