Family Day Care in Germany – the gap between vision and reality

In Germany, family day care has dominated for a long time as a more or less informal provision of childcare. With massive legal changes in the system of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) since 2006, family day care became a part of the formal ECEC system and has now the same comprehensive legal tasks of education and care. This leads both to profound changes and to challenges for the system of family day care. This report provides an overview of current developments in family day care in Germany and the perspectives of its enhancement. In addition to considering the quantitative development, it mainly deals with the paradigms of a qualitative upgrading, which in particular emphasizes the current structures of the public support for family day care such as an adequate advisory system or qualification. We have based this overview mainly on qualitative and quantitative data from research at the German Youth Institute within the last five years. There is still a gap between the development of day care and its legal equality in the ECEC system on the one hand and the conditions condition and everyday structures on the other hand. The quantitative development of family day care does not yet involve a necessary qualitative upgrading of this day care system yet