Early Years Practitioners

Children Act 2006 – Is an Act that defines the new duties imposed on the Local Authorities in respect to improving the Every Child Matters outcomes for pre-school children. The Act also defines new rules in relation to childcare for working parents as well as parental information services. It is aimed at improving the well-being of young children. It emphasises the importance of safeguarding children and young people within an educational setting. If a child discloses neglect or abuse; an establishment should have instructions to help the child. This could be referral to an outside organisation or internally.

Children Act 1989 – Determines the duty of early year’s practitioners to identify and meet the separate and distinctive needs of children and to keep them safe. It initiated the belief that the child ought to be at the centre of planning and that a child’s well-being and safety are vital when judgements are made concerning them. This act also recognises the accountabilities of parents in keeping their offspring safe. In this act there are two particular segments that relate to the duty of local authority with concern to child protection, these are-

Safeguarding is an important part of integrated working. When professionals work together in an integrated way, they put the child at the centre of all activities to help identify their holistic needs earlier to improve their life outcomes. It is important to see safeguarding as

It is everybody’s responsibility to safeguard children – This means every single staff member within a setting; irrelevant of what role they may have there. This also includes non-staff members, such as volunteers, student’s third-party companies (visitors, service providers etc). Each setting should therefore adopt their own safeguarding policy, of which has to be kept up to date and followed at all times.

The children act 1989 has influenced some settings by bringing together several sets of guidance and provided the foundation for many of the standards practitioners sustain and maintain when working with children. The act requires that settings work together in the best interests of the child and form partnerships with parents or carers. It requires settings to have appropriate adult to child ratios and policies and procedures on child protection. This act has had an influence in all areas of practice from planning a curriculum and record keeping. The every child matters framework has

Children also need to communicate and socialise with their peers, children from other age groups and other adults. They need to feel safe and secure in their environment so that they feel able to speak to adults about any concerns they may have, or to ask questions and seek help without fear of embarrassment. They need good role models who can help them extend their decision making skills and develop independence appropriate to their age and development level. Practitioners have a further responsibility to provide additional support to children who may have special educational needs. This may be through individual sessions within the school, liaison with external services such as educational psychologists or through the CAF (Common Assessment Framework) process. The CAF process was developed to gather and assess information in relation to a child’s needs in development, parenting and the family environment. It is a service that should be offered to children (and their families) whose additional needs are not being met through universal services within the school. Practitioners also need to protect any children who may be at risk of significant harm because of their home life

1.3 Analyse how national and local guidelines, policies and procedures for safeguarding affect day-to-day work with children and young people

Today we use the term safeguarding instead of child protection because it covers a much broader range. These changes were influenced by the first Joint Chief Inspectors’ safeguarding report 2002 and formalised in the Every Child Matters legislation outlined in the Children Act 2004. By safeguarding a child or young person we ensure they get the very best of the opportunities available to them for them to achieve the best of their potential while keeping them safe from bullying, crime, accidents, neglect and abuse.

Risk assessments should be carried out regularly to make sure that there are no safe guard threats towards the children in the setting. Childcare settings need risk assessing for example is there entrances and exits to the building that an unauthorised person could use? Could a child leave the setting without anyone noticing? Could a child get seriously hurt due to a broken piece of equipment?

The UK Government has defined the term ‘safeguarding children’ as: ‘The process of protecting children from abuse or neglect, preventing impairment of their health and development, and ensuring they are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care that enables children to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully.’

‘Early years practitioners have a key role to play in working with parents to support their young children. This should include identifying learning needs and responding quickly to any difficulties. Wherever appropriate, practitioners should work together with professionals from other

Within an early year’s settings, there should be a cleared and agreed policy on how they will deliver the Early Years’ Foundation Stage’s requirements for development to meet the needs of individual children, their circumstances and the local community. It is stated (in Cache Level 3 Childcare and Education, Early years’ educator, Carolyn Meggitt et al, 2015, page 398/399 16/01/17) that it “should include: A policy statement, aims, curriculum content, roles and responsibility of the staff, teaching and learning, equal opportunities, special educational needs, resources, assessment, parent partnerships, professional development and monitor and review”. This is to ensure that all the needs of each child is met effectively and they are all receiving the support they need in order to develop. Without following the Early Years’ Foundation Stage requirements for development, then some children may not receive the additional support when they require it the most which could damage the child’s holistic development. Another procedure that practitioners need to follow in order to make sure that the children are kept safe within in the setting is

Early years setting defines the role of parents, carers, teacher, education providers and Government to work within the framework to support an integrated approach to provide the best possible care for children in the United Kingdom. It also provides professionals who work with children to set a common policy and commitments to deliver the best quality of early year education and childcare experience to all involved. It is important that early childhood practitioners understand that individual child develops at a different level in accordance with their surrounding environment. Policies and procedures become a tool to support practitioners to understand in detail any child’s development throughout their early year stages (Goulet, M. & Shroeder,

The study analyses five case studies in early years settings, focusing on one child identified with special educational needs. The sampling aimed to choose ‘outstanding’ early years provisions graded by Ofsted. In my opinion, it would have been more interesting to include settings with some lower grades, to look at the matter from different perspectives. Disappointingly, the authors have not included a school nursery and only results from three out of five case studies were discussed in the final analysis. They did not also explain how the sample of 3 settings was selected. Although the authors identified the research methodology, they did not also include any associated limitations of the research design, regarding time limit or sample size.

The Relationship Between the Disciplines of: Early Childhood, Early Childhood Special Education, and Child and Family Science, Historically and Toady (bullet four)