Early years framework for those working with families and children
September 2010
The Early Years
Framework is intended to improve the life chances of Scotland's
children and tackle inequalities by targeting the early
years. It is an ambitious framework and requires all services
and agencies, including the voluntary sector to be bold in their
ambitions, re-design their services, where appropriate, to improve
services to children and their families. It seeks to take
away the bureaucracy and any duplication in services and seeks to
build capacity within communities to support children and their
families.
The aspiration is to develop longer term solutions that support
children and parents.
For many service providers, it will mean a challenge from
dealing with the here and now, often through crisis management, to
intervening at a much earlier stage in a timely, meaningful and
purposeful way, to effect longer term change and improve outcomes
in later life.
The Early Years Framework is also set within the context of the
Scottish Government's Equally Well report, which tackles
health inequalities and Achieving Our Potential which
tackles poverty and income inequalities.
Community planning partners, led through the East Ayrshire
Community Health Partnership Officer Locality Group for Children
and Young People have decided to focus their priorities on the
following elements of transformational change:
- Helping children, families and communities to secure outcomes
for themselves
- Using the strength of universal services to deliver prevention
and early intervention
- Simplifying and streamlining delivery
- Collaborative approaches
The Community Health Partnership Officer Locality Group
(Children and Young People) agreed that the roll out of the
Solihull Approach would support these priorities. It was agreed
that the initial roll out be based around the five nursery and
family centres in East Ayrshire, with staff trained across agencies
to achieve a consistent multi-agency approach to working with
parents.
The approach
The Solihull Approach is designed as an intervention measure
particularly to assist health and care professionals who work with
families and children aged 0-5 years with sleeping, toileting and
behavioural difficulties. Practitioners are trained in
theoretical approaches and in using a range of material containing
practical leaflets and resources provided for parents and carers,
which supports them in their role and is responsive to their
needs.
The Solihull Approach is a highly practical way of working with
families. It is an integrated psychodynamic and behavioural
approach for professionals working with children and families who
are affected by behavioural and emotional difficulties. The
theoretical model has been developed from the three concepts of
containment, reciprocity and behaviour
management. Teamwork and collaborative working between
professionals using these principles will help to support parents
in a creative and consistent way within East Ayrshire. Development
of this 'shared' approach and language can be effective in a
multitude of settings from individual practice through to group
settings.
A strength of developing this approach locally is that it is not
an assessment process to be used at certain circumstances to decide
upon an intervention. It is a way of working and thinking
which helps families to process their own emotions and anxieties
which in turn restores their abilities to think and enables them to
help their child cope with his emotions or anxieties. This
ultimately facilitates the relationship between parent and child
and supports the parent to work with their child's behaviour.
Aim and outcomes
The overall aim of the Solihull three-year training programme is
to improve opportunities "to build the capacity of individuals,
families and communities to secure the best outcomes for children
and young people which reflect the universal and targeted
approaches" that is founded on the principles of early intervention
to ensure that every child gets the best start in life. The
outcomes for the programme are:
- Increase positive parenting skills across the East Ayrshire
area
- Strengthen the levels of community contact and support for
families
- Improved joint working between and across agencies
The model will encompass all associated services and agencies
which have direct contact with families who have children 0-8
years. It is proposed that staff who have a leadership role and /or
who work directly with parents will be trained in the two-day basic
foundation course using the 0-5 years training manual The First
Five Years.
Objectives
The objectives of the Solihull training programme are to:
- Help practitioners become reflective in their work with
children and young people and their families
- Help them acquire the language to describe and shape
practitioners thoughts and experiences
- Increase practitioners understanding of how emotional and
behavioural difficulties develop within families
- Provide a coherent model for assessment
- Build confidence and skill level
- Provide reference to evidence based practical advice and
resources
- Develop a more consistent approach
- Identify trigger points for early referral to other specialist
services
Further information
Janie Allen, Principal Officer (Early Education and Childcare),
Department of Educational and Social Services: 01563 578125 janie.allen@east-ayrshire.gov.uk
Kathleen Winter, Public Health Practitioner (Child Health):
01563 551529 kathleen.winter@aapct.scot.nhs.uk