The Brook Peer Educators scheme works, they say, because children are more likely to listen to people of the same peer group advising them.
This goes some way to explaining the discordance between reports of high job satisfaction in FDC[ 73] alongside workforce retention problems (pers comms, FDC educators, scheme management).
Through discussions over months of fieldwork, it became clear that there was a strong, shared concern about job stress, turnover and educator wellbeing by educators, scheme management and sector organisations.
The topic for this study emerged through conversations with FDC educators, scheme management and Family Day Care Australia (FDCA) during fieldwork for a randomised controlled trial aiming to support the mental health and wellbeing of children in FDC[ 51].
6) Community response and its linkage with health services Extensive peer educator schemes established by local health services can be regarded as a major breakthrough in reaching and serving hard-to-reach populations and to ensure adherence to HIV treatment.
Despite a shared foundation based on government policy and regulations, there was variation in how schemes managed these parameters, their service provision and therefore the perceived success of educator-scheme relationships.
Scheme key informants emphasised educator-scheme interdependence, working in partnership with, and valuing educators: "Well without them [FDC educators, we] don't have a job either… we need to respect what they're doing and in order for them to respect us we've got to respect them so we're just as important as each other" (Key Informant 6).
Ambiguous quality standards and regulation documents caused considerable stress to educators and schemes alike.
Other educators found schemes frustratingly unresponsive, despite repeated attempts to seek support.
The final themes used in the analysis were checked and discussed with educators and scheme staff through an interactive workshop and informal discussion (i.e. member checking).
