Skills and tasks

In considering the training and support needs of the diverse early years workforce, it is helpful to identify both the tasks involved and the skills that are needed by all practitioners to successfully engage parents in their children's early learning.

Tasks involved in engaging parents in their children's early learning

  • Getting to know the local community, what the needs are and where vulnerable families are.
  • Outreach to engage the most socially excluded families within the local community, including fathers, those from different cultural backgrounds and parents with additional support needs.
  • Consultation, both formal and informal, to involve local parents in the design and implementation of services.
  • Fostering and maintaining parents' belief that their children can do well and that they as parents have the ability to support their early learning.
  • Building authentic and supportive relationships with parents founded on an understanding and valuing of a parent's role and the home learning environment.
  • Understanding the wider family environment of the child.
  • Promoting secure attachment between parents and children.
  • Helping parents to acquire the knowledge, confidence and skills to provide the quality of relationships and learning experiences that their children need.
  • Tailoring support to the needs of individual families, taking account of cultural and gender needs.
  • Making informed decisions about risk and when specialist services are required.
  • Working as part of multi-agency raft of service provision.
  • Monitoring take-up and evaluating the impact of work with parents on outcomes for children.

Skills needed to engage parents in their children's early learning

Effective practitioners are able to:

  • recognise which groups of children are vulnerable to learning delay and undertake creative outreach activities to reach families most in need of support
  • listen and build supportive relationships with parents within an ethos of partnership
  • understand why parents and the home learning environment are so important
  • identify parents' starting points and make informed and responsive decisions about how to tailor support and resources to the needs of individual families
  • engage parents and help them develop the confidence, knowledge and skills to help their children
  • help families develop problem-solving skills
  • identify difficulties early and know when and how to involve other specialist services
  • reflect on their practice
  • recognise the potential contributions of partner agencies and work effectively in multi-agency teams.
"It's having an appropriately skilled workforce, to make sure that whatever work they're doing with the parent that they've got the skills to be able to manage it in an effective manner."

Children's centre co-ordinator

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Last updated: 3rd December 2009 at 03:12:47