1. Why is it important for children and young people that you work in partnerships with the following people/groups?
Parents, carers, guardians – It is important to have a good relationship with a child or young person’s parent etc. to have a better understanding of the child and their needs, having a good relationship with the parent will also encourage the child or young person to have a good and close relationship with the practitioner as they learn and copy from their carers.
Other professionals – You should work well with other professionals to ensure that when having concerns or queries about a child, they are handled quickly and information is not missed, information passed will also be correct. This guarantees the child or young person gets the help they need.
Multi-disciplinary teams – Having a good relationship with multi-disciplinary teams benefits the child by ensuring all information exchanged is correct, it can also mean that an agreement can be made together giving options for the child and family, also an agreement of next steps will be done there and then.
Colleagues – If colleagues do not have good relationships in a nursery setting, this will result in the nursery not running smoothly and incidents may occur. For example if colleagues do not work together or communicate in a setting a message (who’s picking a child up or passwords for another carer to pick up) may not be passed also medicine may not be given at a specific time or at all, there could be an incident where a member of staff has already given medicine but not told anyone so medicine is then given again, overdosing the child.
2. Identify from within your own chosen work setting three relevant partners for communication and information sharing.
Deputy Manager – On a daily basis I speak to my deputy manager about child concerns and/queries, parent complaints, staff shifts, ratios, holidays etc.
Colleagues – I would speak to my colleagues about children’s medical conditions/allergies or food requirements in our specific room, parent concerns for their child or any messages regarding a child, activities and ideas for the children in our room.
Children – When talking to children we discuss holidays, activities at home, family, and topics which we are focusing on at nursery and also the child’s interests ( what characters, toys, programmes they like and their favourites)
3. What three characteristics define an effective working partnership?
Confidence is important when communicating to parents, children and with other professionals. It is important to be confident when speaking to parents to encourage them of your knowledge, showing them you know how their child has been; being confident in front of children encourages them to be more open and confident when communicating with others themselves. Being confident whilst communicating with other professionals also shows them that again you know what you are talking about and being confident also helps to communicate clearly.
Having positive body language and gestures is important as it makes you as a person more approachable and friendly, making it