In this reflective blog post for this special issue, we draw on a vignette of the nursery practices that are everyday acts of advocacy. Our commentary foregrounds the unacknowledged labour of early educators in providing services that were once publicly funded services.

Caitlin’s story:

As the nursery manager, I lead the team on a daily basis with the goal of creating a nurturing environment where every child and family feels supported. This cold morning in West Yorkshire is no different.

A parent, visibly overwhelmed, arrives with a child in pyjamas. The staff greet them with understanding smiles, initiating a chat at the door to get a sense of the children’s morning and the night before. The stories often echo the same struggles – no hot water for baths, and no time to visit the laundrette.

One staff member tenderly leads a little girl to the bathroom, gently bathing away the remnants of a challenging night. She brushes and plaits the child’s hair, crafting an “Elsa plait” that brings a shy smile to the girl’s face. Afterwards, the child chooses from the nursery’s collection of spare clothing, the educator ensuring she feels involved and cared for. A bag is quickly packed with essentials for the family to take home at the end of the session. Pyjamas are washed and dried ready for tonight.

Meanwhile, another staff member prepares for a meeting focused on an early help plan for the family. Mental health support has been recommended for the parent, and additional nursery sessions for the baby are funded by early intervention funding from the local authority, giving the parent the time they need to access support. I make a referral to the nursery’s sister Community Interest Company ensuring that the family will have financial support for winter fuel, a small yet significant relief in the challenging months ahead.

Caitlin’s story will be familiar to many working in contemporary early childhood education and care. By 2024, more than 1,100 children’s centres had closed in England. In place of these, many early childhood settings are increasingly providing a wide range of guidance, information, and practical and emotional support to families. However, we don’t know enough about the scale of this unwelcome development and the increased responsibilities early educators now have.

‘In recent years, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, the wider role of nurseries has been to facilitate support for families as part of the social infrastructure.’

In recent years, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, the wider role of nurseries has been to facilitate support for families as part of the social infrastructure (Benchekroun & Cameron, 2023). For many families, the nursery was ‘valued as a space where mothers could build relationships with practitioners … and access material, informational and emotional support’ (Benchekroun & Cameron, 2023, p. 1451). A form of social triage seen in schools (Wood & Quickfall, 2024) also appears evident in nurseries.

The work described above is underpinned by an ethic of care. This extends beyond the remit of early education for children to meet the needs of the whole family and community, exemplified in small acts which respond to the individual needs of families and in navigating a fractured and underresourced public service system. These are daily advocacies by educators who act with empathy and generosity: transformational advocacy work, which is embedded, relational and compassionate.

It appears that substantial labour is given freely by early educators beyond what is funded, regulated for or expected, with the consequence that support for families remains unacknowledged in policy terms.

In aspiring towards a more just early childhood system, we advocate for change on two fronts. First, a reimagining of how multiple services for young children and families might be better integrated and resourced, perhaps starting from the places and services that children already access such as nurseries (Archer & Oppenheim, 2021). Second, we call for recognition of the additional labour of educators as a precursor to a just system of early childhood services. Importantly, there is a need to better understand both the impact of local service erosion and the unrecognised work in nurseries and to fund greater support for family wellbeing and children’s flourishing.

References

Archer, N., & Oppenheim, C., (2021). The role of early childhood education and care in shaping life chances. Nuffield Foundation. https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/publications/early-childhood-education-care-shaping-life-chances  

Benchekroun, R., & Cameron, C. (2023). Shrinking social spaces: The role of nurseries as social infrastructure and brokers of support in times of crisis. Children & Society, 37, 1446–1461. https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12775

Wood, P., & Quickfall, A. (2024). The emergence of leadership as social triage: Understanding the impact of the long shadows of austerity and the Covid-19 pandemic in English schools. London Review of Education, 22(1), 38. https://doi.org/10.14324/LRE.22.1.38