Parents' Satisfaction, Preferences, and Perception of Staff Competence and Quality Of Services Rendered at Faith-Based Daycare Centers.

A survey of licensed, faith-based, child daycare programs was conducted in Metropolitan Cleveland, Ohio, to explore the parents' satisfaction, preferences, and their perception of staff competence as well as quality of services rendered. Sixteen daycare programs and 74 parents were represented in this study. Previous research has analyzed parents' satisfaction based on curricular issues, educational background of staff, and staff ratio. However, there is a need to determine parents' perceptions and preferences as related to the scope of this study. Sixty-one percent of the respondents indicated that people who are devoted to their faith are more effective or much more effective as human service providers as compared with others. Sixty-nine percent indicated some level of preference for a child care worker who was a person of faith if they had a choice. Eighty percent indicated that they believed that the daycare workers were knowledgeable and skillful as human service workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]