Childcare Teachers' Awareness and Demand for Safety Education for Infants and Young Children

Objectives This study examined the awareness and demand for safety education for infants and young children. Methods For this purpose, an online survey was conducted for childcare teachers who agreed to the study. 548 questionnaires were used for the final analysis, and were analyzed through chi-test and independent sample t-test. Results First, safety education in childcare centers was conducted ‘once or twice a week’ or ‘every day’. All teachers recognized that it was not difficult to implement play-oriented safety education, but the teacher in the young children class cited “because they can set safety rules by themselves through play.” It responded that safety education presented in Article 28 of the Enforcement Decree of the Child Welfare Act was well implemented, and young child class teachers were better conducting disaster preparedness and traffic safety education. All teachers provide safety education through daily life, indoor play, and outdoor play, and young child class teachers use more video viewing education methods. Second, all teachers wanted to include in the safety curriculum, such as sexual violence and child abuse, missing kidnapping, infectious diseases, disaster preparedness, traffic safety. In addition, all teachers responded that it was necessary to link the safety education curriculum with the home, and young child class teachers recognized that the demand for video viewing safety education method required more. Conclusions It is necessary to develop more diverse safety education curriculum in consideration of the needs of the teachers according to the target age.