Value-based education for pre-service students in Children and Family Studies

Abstract

Caregivers’ beliefs about the world and about society, children, families and learning influence how they deliver services. Some beliefs are consistent with high quality practice and some are not. Educators have a responsibility to deliver training that will increase the probability that caregivers will deliver high quality services. To achieve this, it is important to not only deliver content, but also to encourage students to adopt the kinds of values consistent with high quality service delivery. In this paper, I examine some of the issues associated with the teaching of values in Children’s Services, and propose and evaluate a model for teaching values.