Matching ethnicity of childcare workers to the community they serve is not as important as having a good mix of staff from different backgrounds, a Daycare Trust report has found.
The charity's study into ethnic minority childcare workers found parents and staff felt the constantly changing nature of communities would make it impossible to always recruit people from the same backgrounds as the families using services.
The report, Ensuring Equality, also found having ethnic minority staff helped overcome the image of childcare as a middle-class phenomenon.
"If parents' first impression is of a multi-ethnic workforce, whether or not their own ethnicity is represented, they are more likely to feel welcome and that they fit in," the report said.
Recruiting workers from ethnic minorities was flagged as a difficulty, and the report suggested volunteering as a good way of getting parents interested in working in childcare.
