Childhood and Young People Essay

There are many social, economical and cultural factors that impact on the lives of children and young people. In my role as a Young Carer’s Support Worker, I work with a number of families living with the consequences of these factors. Every Child Matters (ECM) aims to improve the outcomes and life chances of every child and young person, therefore, it is important we understand and do all we can to help them achieve the 5 outcomes of the ECM, stay safe, be healthy, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution, and, achieve economic well-being.

This helps practitioner’s work together for the welfare of children. It promotes the Every Child Matters outcomes to reinforcing how important it is for all child careers to work together.

The Children and Young Peoples Board in Birmingham comprises of different partner agencies and organisations that each have a duty to cooperate under the Children’s Act 2004 in strategic planning, service developments and consideration of emerging issues around children and young people. Partner agencies include:

Integrated working is achieved through effective collaboration and co-ordination across all services and sectors including voluntary who work with children, young people and their families. These sectors could be housing, police, health, child-minders, community groups or early year’s workers. The above services are a fundamental role for both children, families and carers who may need the support of these agencies .Multi- agency Collaboration is crucial in partnership working, to support better outcomes for children and their families. Integrated working brings many benefits to delivering a more improved service by:

Throughout my years as a childcare practitioner, I have accumulated a wide range of experience working with children aged 3 – 11. However, the majority of my experience is with children aged 3-5. Through

A successful approach requires multi-agency collaboration and recognition of child wellbeing at the heart of the organisation.

Demonstrate supportive and realistic responses to children and young people’s questions, ideas, suggestions and concerns

Explain the roles and responsibilities of two members of the children’s workforce in relation to looked after children and young people.

Partnership is driven by a desire for collaborative advantage and can offer many positive outcomes, like benefits for staff and services such as less replication between different service providers. It helps them see others point of view and it keeps them from being selfish, it helps young people interact with others to achieve a goal, and it helps them develop socially. It’s important to work in partnership with others so that all agencies can share information and concerns about children and young people in their care, it also helps to keep the children safe and away from harm.

In this assignment, I am writing about the duties and responsibilities of my work role and the expectation of my work role.

The responsibility of the practitioner is to work as part of a team with other professionals and staff members effectively to bring children and parents the best possible service i.e. working with social workers, speech and language therapists, and family support workers. Practitioners must also have a working partnership with parents, to work effectively with the child as the parents are the primary carers and they will know what the child is like at home and what the child’s interests are. For example they would have a policy called ”parents as partners”.

Working together to safeguard children 2006 sets out how organisations and individuals should work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people in accordance with the Children’s Act 1989 and the Children’s Act 2004. It is important that all practitioners within settings and environments looking and caring after children and young people must know their responsibilities and duties in order to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people, following their legislations, policies and procedures.

Task 2 understands the importance of effective communication and information sharing in services for children and young people.

● organisations that are responsible for commissioning or providing services to children, young people, and adults who are parents/carers; and

Within a setting the most important partnership is with parents and families. Family influences have a much more powerful effect upon children’s attitudes and achievements than either school or neighbourhood factors; even when these are added together. When you are working with parents to develop a home-school relationship, it is essential to be able to work with all families. Families come in all shapes and sizes and there are many varieties of family experience and patterns of family organisation and childcare. “One of the essentials for educational advance is a closer partnership between the two parties (i.e. schools and parents) to every child’s education. (Plowden, 1967:37) Good communication, flexible timing, a more informal approach is important in childcare and these will help all parents and teachers work together better. Parents are a child 's first teachers and know their children best. Practitioners have the knowledge to support children’s learning and development. If the partnership