Login (DCU Staff Only)
Login (DCU Staff Only)

DORAS | DCU Research Repository

Explore open access research and scholarly works from DCU

Advanced Search

The Well-Being of Early Childhood Providers in Ireland

Gormley, Laura orcid logoORCID: 0000-0003-2190-479X and Hines, Roberta (2024) The Well-Being of Early Childhood Providers in Ireland. Early Childhood Education Journal . ISSN 1082-3301

Abstract
Early childhood professionals play a critical role in the lives of the children they work with, and their psychological well-being significantly impacts this relationship. Over recent years, societal changes, coupled with new policy, has increased the demands and pressures faced by these professionals. Therefore, the current mixed methods study set out to explore the well-being of early childhood providers (i.e., owner, owner-managers) in Ireland. In total, 489 participants completed the anonymous online survey, which included the WHO-5 questionnaire and an open-ended question that explored reasons for any stress experienced in the previous 2-week period. Almost 60% of participants scored 50 or lower and over 20% scored 28 or lower, indicating poor well-being and potential depression. The majority of participants reported feeling stressed in the 2-week period prior to completing the survey and frequently cited work-related issues as being the source of their stress. The major themes that emerged were burden of administration, overwhelming financial pressure, and staffing issues. These findings indicate that early childhood providers would benefit from bottom-up and top-down assistance to positively support their well-being. This is vital if they are to thrive in their professional roles and provide high quality, transformative experiences for our children.
Metadata
Item Type:Article (Published)
Refereed:Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:Well-being, early childhood, early years, providers
Subjects:Social Sciences > Education
DCU Faculties and Centres:UNSPECIFIED
Publisher:Springer
Official URL:https://rdcu.be/dVeTq
Copyright Information:Authors
ID Code:30344
Deposited On:03 Oct 2024 09:38 by Laura Gormley . Last Modified 03 Oct 2024 09:38
Documents

Full text available as:

[thumbnail of Gormley and Hines (2024). The Well-being of Early Childhood Providers in Ireland - Author Accepted Version.pdf] PDF - Archive staff only. This file is embargoed until 27 September 2025 - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader
Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0
415kB
Downloads

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Archive Staff Only: edit this record