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Young babies are vulnerable to food‐borne disease. Examines the results of a questionnaire survey of parents and carers in day nurseries to examine the practices used to sterilize feeding equipment, reconstitute infant milk feeds and prepare weaning foods. Reports on observations of infant feeding practices carried out in six day nurseries. Standards of food handling in the nurseries were high but there was a lack of knowledge about current food hygiene regulations. Parents generally complied with recommended techniques for sterilizing equipment and reconstituting infant feeds. Extensive use was made of convenience weaning foods but foods were also prepared in the home. Recommended cooling and reheating techniques were not widely used. Some potentially unsafe practices were used to transport reconstituted milk feeds or weaning foods.

Kirklees Early Years Services encompasses all early childhood services from nursery education, day nurseries, and regulation and support of the private and voluntary sector – playgroups, childminders and private and voluntary day nurseries. Reflects on the financial difficulties of running an integrated early years service, difficulties compounded by the lack of comparable financial statistics and conflicts about cost effectiveness across different kinds of services.

The large pool of female labour has become increasingly important to industry. But as competition hots up, firms find that more than equal pay is needed to attract the women. Factory creches have been successful. Leslie Kenton investigates.

INFORMED CONCERN for the pre‐school child was the motive which brought together five research assistants from varying backgrounds in 1977, to set up an Early Childhood Information Centre at the Froebel Institute (Roehampton Institute of Higher Education) in south London. It is a matter for profound regret that all work on the centre ceased in March 1978, but it is also an experience familiar to anyone who has worked on a Job Creation Project.

Reflects on the experiences of trying to manage a radical initiative in a traditional organizational setting as co‐ordinator at Pen Green Nursery Centre, which has tried to reconcile the conflicting values and practices of education, social work and community development.

The possibility of introducing flexible working practices is investigated, focusing on the position of area catering supervisor in Sutcliffe Catering Ltd. The investigation was carried out in the light of demographic changes currently facing British industry. It is concluded that the position of Area Catering Supervisor can be made flexible by either introducing flexible working practices within the job description or by introducing flexible arrangements that do not change the structure of the job, but enable tasks to be conducted more easily. It is recommended that these changes are introduced in two stages comprising short‐term and long‐term initiatives.

The Commission appointed jointly by the World Health Organization and the Food and Agricultural Organization continues to plod its weary way towards the establishment of Codex standards for all foods, which it is hoped will eventually be adopted by all countries, to end the increasing chaos of present national standards. We have to go back to 1953, when the Sixth World Health Assembly showed signs of a stirring of international conscience at trends in food industry; and particularly expressed “the view that the increasing use of various chemical substances had … , created a new public health problem”. Joint WHO/FAO Conferences which followed initiated inter alia international consultations and the setting up of the Joint FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission.

The debates on welfare provision in Britain are both familiar and well documented. (Loney, Boswell & Clarke 1984, Mishra 1984). It has been pointed out, however, by recent analysts (Barrett & Mcintosh 1982, Dale & Foster 1986) that quite different analyses of the deficiencies of the present system share common assumptions regarding the family. It will be argued here that this is particularly clear in current debates concerning parental involvement in pre school provision. Parental involvement has become a political catchphrase in the 1980's. It has been taken up by right and left, by community activists and central government. Much of the discussion, however, is underpinned by a particular view of the family. For the New Right the family is a focal point for much that is wrong in contemporary British society (Fitzgerald 1983). Parental involvement, here, is seen as a right and a duty for parents as well as a way to offset the reduction in individual responsibilities that have occurred with an invasive welfare state. The Left has also tended to view families in individualistic ways but has sought to redistribute educational opportunities through supporting parents to understand, use and make demands on overly centralised educational system e.g. Plowden 1967, Strathclyde Regional Council 1985. Parental involvement becomes a right and away to improve parents resources. The difficulties with these prescriptions, from Left and Right, is that their conceptualisation of the family ignores the realities of families and childcare, particularly in relation to women (David 1985, Wilson 1983). Thus they fail to take into account how these realities affect the way in which parents use and respond to parental involvement strategies.

ACCORDING TO A PAMPHLET produced by the Scottish Education Department, called Education in Scotland, some facts and figures, ‘The general aim (of secondary schools) throughout is to provide an education adapted at each stage to the developing needs of each boy or girl which will fit them on leaving school to pursue further education either full‐time or part‐time’. Which probably accounts for the enormous building activity in Glasgow's FE sector. Almost every FE college in the city is due for either new buildings or expansion to meet the ever‐growing number of entrants. One such college is the College of Commerce in the centre of Glasgow. The college started in new buildings in 1962 and had a new annexe opened in 1966 with 40 classrooms in it. A new college is planned for about 1970 and these existing buildings will be devoted entirely to distributive trades and hairdressing.

Library provision for children in specially furnished areas of the library began in the United Kingdom in the late 1890s although this early provision was sketchy. Where they did exist, children′s facilities were often provided in a separate children′s room, often resembling a “cut‐down” adult library. The advent of open‐plan libraries provided areas specially designed and furnished for children of all ages. The influence of Scandinavian and North American children′s library design has been evident for some years. A library′s appearance is now recognized as an important factor in marketing services to children. Despite the problems caused by old and unsuitable buildings, library staff often take considerable care to provide a welcoming environment for children. However, children′s work in the 1980s ad 1990s has had to face cuts in expenditure, staffing levels, hours of opening and in some cases compete with new “priority areas” – services to ethnic minorities; housebound services; business or community information. The children′s librarian with a knowledge of children′s reading needs and library design needs would seem to be a dying breed.