Men Working in Childcare
HRQ
2,849 Posts
Can anybody share training materials or at least some suggestions regarding dealing with perceptions of men in childcare? (Marc? blw?) Healthcare industry might have something useful too.
The issue is mainly perception of men working with children. One goal is to protect our male staff by helping them understand how they can be perceived simply because they happen to be male. Their behavior could be completely consistent with female teachers' behavior, but men can be perceived differently when they hold, hug, carry, or play with children.
We also want to protect our company from the ugly media attention that happens even when an accusation turns out to be unsubstantiated.
I'd like to lump in the above training with harassment training. Many of our 95% female staff enjoy flirting with the male staff. The women, particularly supervisors, need to understand why this is inappropriate and how to stop it, and the men need to understand they can't behave in certain ways even if the women seem to enjoy it at the time.
I at least need a starting point and am not sure how exactly to approach the men. It's not fair that they can be perceived differently than women in the same job, but it's a valid concern we need to deal with proactively.
Thanks for ANY suggestions you can give me - no matter how minor.
You can reply here, or email me whatever you are willing to share. Thank you in advance! [email]lbremer@sunrisepreschools.com[/email]
The issue is mainly perception of men working with children. One goal is to protect our male staff by helping them understand how they can be perceived simply because they happen to be male. Their behavior could be completely consistent with female teachers' behavior, but men can be perceived differently when they hold, hug, carry, or play with children.
We also want to protect our company from the ugly media attention that happens even when an accusation turns out to be unsubstantiated.
I'd like to lump in the above training with harassment training. Many of our 95% female staff enjoy flirting with the male staff. The women, particularly supervisors, need to understand why this is inappropriate and how to stop it, and the men need to understand they can't behave in certain ways even if the women seem to enjoy it at the time.
I at least need a starting point and am not sure how exactly to approach the men. It's not fair that they can be perceived differently than women in the same job, but it's a valid concern we need to deal with proactively.
Thanks for ANY suggestions you can give me - no matter how minor.
You can reply here, or email me whatever you are willing to share. Thank you in advance! [email]lbremer@sunrisepreschools.com[/email]
Comments
[url]http://www.nccic.org/faqs/men.html[/url]
[url]http://www.meninchildcare.co.uk/Forward.htm[/url] (lists two books about the subject)
Good luck!
Cinderella
Please be careful!
You are already in danger of stereotyping and discrimination by approaching men in childcare in this fashion.
If you discover that you have to change your policies and procedures if a man is hired, there are two major issues. One is that you may be setting yourself up for a discrimination suit if you make separate rules for men in your program. The other issue is that you may discover that there are many policy areas that need to be changed to protect or involve both men and women in an equal and positive way such as rules about no staff members being alone with children.
As far as handling allegations of abuse, just a couple of things of which to be aware:
1. Stories in the media about men abusing children in child care centers make good copy but are realistically insignificant. The highest estimates are that 4% of childcare workers are men. In fact, since you are more likely to have an overwhelming majority of women on your staff, you are much more likely to have to deal with a female staff member abusing a child than your male staff.
2. When in doubt always get advice from an attorney with expertise in defending against child abuse accusations. Don't let an inexperienced attorney practice with you as their client. Just like other areas of the law, some are good in this field and some are not.
I am not directly involved with childcare, but our agency works closely with a number of childcare providers and my wife is a director in a top-shelf childcare program. I do have some information and opinions, but may not be the expert you seek. I would recommend you contact the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) for more reading material and other information which may help you in you search.
Good luck.
>staff enjoy flirting with the male staff. The
>women, particularly supervisors, need to
>understand why this is inappropriate and how to
>stop it, and the men need to understand they
>can't behave in certain ways even if the women
>seem to enjoy it at the time.
>
It doesn't exactly take a 12-step program to educate the workforce about sexual harassment and appropriate behavior. Your comments suggest to me that you think this is some sort of delicate issue to be worked through over time and a real educational dilemma. It's nothing more than a head-on issue to be dealt with by a policy statement, appropriately rolling out the policy, being sure it is understood, and firing the people who can't or don't follow it.
As to the main part of your question, I will look forward to seeing the responses. You have certainly set yourself up.
I say this with all due respect for your question, and with appreciation of your sensitivity to the fact that men might be more vulnerable to accusations but, as I said, I don't think you can go wrong giving everyone the same training.
We have a much higher percentage of males than you, 27%, probably because we are an after-school care program and hire alot of college students for part-time work. They really enjoy the children and the hours.
To protect all our staff from potential allegations, we discourage any holding, hugging or cuddling of a child, but I don't believe you should do that with the younger age group you work with - they have to have it. We show all our staff how to give side to side, arms around the shoulder hugs and tell them to avoid frontal hugs with all the children. But of course if the child starts hugging, we tell them not to "reject" the hug/child.
In my harassment/discrimination training I specifically address "males in childcare" as an example of stereotyping. I tell staff that as the employer I can't dictate what people believe, but I can dictate what behavior I better not see at work. Re: your desire to help male staff understand how they can be perceived. I think you can mention it like I do in training, but then build their confidence/comfort level with the job they've chosen by reinforcing to them how important it is that some of these children are getting care and attention from what might be the only male role model in their life.
One of our related issues is getting a balance of males/females at each of our sites. We want both there for several reasons; as a role model since some children only have one parental figure and to keep from having to send a female into the bathroom with males if someone needs assistance and vise versa. But even while I know and understand the need, I ask our director and my recruiter to not put it in writing, i.e. an email saying a need to a male staff out at Adams Elementary, etc. There is a valid rationale behind it, but it isn't a legitimate BFOQ, so I want to be careful I don't have to defend it.
I appreciate and understand your concerns. Good luck!
Our owners wanted me to help the men understand that even if they behave the same as women, they can be perceived differently. That does not mean we as an employer will treat them differently than we do women, but are we asking for that perception? Maybe. That's why I asked the Forumites for help.
I can easily just review the policies with the staff and let them know what'll happen to them should they fail to follow the policy.
What works best for training on this topic, in addition to policy review? I've never conducted this type of training before, let alone put it together myself and I'm sure many of you could share what has worked best for you. Discussing past incidents/investigations? (without sharing names) Just reviewing policy? Show a video on the topic? Do separate training for supervisors?
Thanks again.
It really gets everyones attention and starts a good discussion. They almost always think the comment "Wow, look at the size of her b**bs" is sexual harassment and they always think the situation of the supervisor who hits on both a husband and a wife (true Texas case to my sorrow) is sexual harassment and are shocked to say the least when I tell them it isn't.
It also asks if sexual harassment is in the eye of the beholder and most say yes. That allows good conversation about us all having different levels of what offends us, but sexual harassment is defined by law.
I will email you the scenarios I use if you want them.
Also, does your supervisors think as long as they hit on both males and females it's OK? Yikes!
Bam! Turn it up a notch!
IF you want to approach the issue you might want to consider calling it "gender issues in child care" and deal with how both men and women are perceived as child care providers. You could deal with both the positive and negative aspects of having men and women in child care roles.
Using your logic, we would still operate today from the perception that certain jobs are male only and women should go to the house when they reach the end of the second trimester. Soutmasters, priests, youth leaders and babysitters aside, I hold no false notions that abusers are predominantly male. Female gym coaches, piano teachers, girl scout leaders, swim coaches, women babysitters, talent scouts and thong saleswomen are just as likely to be abusers. Coach Ballbreaker from "Porky's" notwithstanding.
>01-29-04 AT 08:40 PM (CST)[/font]
>snip
>and thong saleswomen.....snip
LOL
I had a feeling that was the case. Sorry if I went a little far. I was worried about what some inexperienced people might think with those comments. Thanks for the clarification.
No harm! Although my feathers were briefly ruffled they are calmed down now. x:-)
Don, there is no male bias in my training. I mention that as a sterotype against men. I mention stereotypes against women. And then since the Sexual Harassment training is part of a longer Discrimination and Harassment training, I share examples of stereotypes against blacks, muslims, etc. No one group is in any way profiled or focused on.
Paul, I like that thought. I might even expand on it. Yesterday I had a conversation with my recruiter about her thinking in terms of "age" in regards to child care providers. Not just "gender issues in childcare", but "stereotypes in childcare." Males must be pedophiles, females will love and nurture, old folks won't have the energy to engage with the children, young people will willingly interact and play with them.
Every summer I try to refresh and tweak the training in some way for the next year. I'm off on some ideas.....
(Edits - I can't spell!)