4.3  Identifying and building a community of support

As the previous activity shows, early years practitioners need to know how and when to discuss with parents the need to involve other professionals in providing care for their child. This is everyone’s responsibility. A helpful factsheet is available on the Enquire website [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .

Sometimes it is clear who needs to provide help; at other times it may not be. You might need to contact a health visitor or an educational psychologist. You might need to consult with colleagues or professionals in your local authority to gain advice on the best approach. Team working is an essential part of working with young children.

Perhaps you feel you need to improve your understanding of children’s development. There are links at the end of this week’s study that you can follow to extend your learning.

If you have a concern, try to take a neutral approach. Be curious. Use the wellbeing indicators outlined in the previous section to make some notes connected to observations over time. This will help you notice ways in which the child you may be concerned about is managing their situation. It will help you see what you can build on, remembering that what you focus on is what grows. It will also help you share information respectfully with others.

One way of finding support can be from your wider community. Consider how well connected you and your colleagues are to the services in the locality of your setting.

Activity 4.4  Support available in the community

Timing: Allow 10 minutes

Emma Watt works for Multi-Cultural Family Base, a voluntary agency working across Edinburgh with strong connections to local nurseries and schools. Here Emma describes the support provided for a child who was a refugee from Syria and now lives in Scotland. This example illustrates the range of support that resulted from being part of a well-connected community.

While you watch the film, consider who was involved in providing support for Ahmed. Think about the different individuals and organisations that provided help.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 4.3

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 4.3  Emma Watt – Multi-Cultural Family Base

EMMA WATT:

So my name is Emma. I am a 4-2-7 worker at Multicultural Family Base. I'm a trained social worker.

A couple of years ago, we had a referral from the head teacher at Lorne Nursery. We've had a long relationship with Lorne Nursery, and indeed, other nurseries and schools in Leith and across the city so they know to call us for referrals.

They had a boy presenting who had come from Syria. He had come here under the UN vulnerable person relocation scheme, and he had a number of behaviours which were concerning to the nursery. Such as when he saw a plane going overhead, he would become very anxious and hide under the table. So using that relationship we had with Lorne, we went in and offered him support. So it was very key to this to have that long standing relationship with the school so they knew to call us and pull in that support.

When Ahmed was referred in, I quickly felt that the whole family needed support. So I believe that when a family have experienced trauma, holistic support for the whole family is key to their support. Ahmed was clearly presenting with post-traumatic stress symptoms. The latest Save the Children report call this toxic stress, not post-traumatic stress. So it was clear to me that this boy, Ahmed, was presenting with these behaviours, which would suggest that he had toxic stress.

Following on from meeting Ahmed and his family, I realised that we needed to pull on a range of supports that was crucial. I realised that Ahmed would need support from an art psychotherapist. And the point of that support was to allow him to build that alliance with his art psychotherapist, and to explore some of his behaviours and what he'd been through, and to offer him a safe space in which to do that.

However, in terms of the holistic support, I knew that mum needed support as well to manage his behaviours at home. And mum needed support in her own right, so I went in once a week to offer mum support. And we offered her a space here in our mum's group. The whole family were invited to a ceilidh, which we have every term which offers lunch and dancing to families and allows them to meet other families in the community, so it kind of impacts on social isolation.

Initially, when Ahmed was referred in, I was invited along to some child planning meetings to see what support we could put in place. So I would go along and meet Ahmed on a one-to-one basis and do one-to-one work with him. And then I realised that actually what he needed, what would really benefit him and I knew this from our evidence base and from my practice wisdom was him working alongside the art psychotherapist. So it took a few weeks of one-to-one interventions to see, let's expand this support out and see what else is needed for him and for his well-being.

I think in terms of who was supporting Ahmed, it's really important to recognise and to realise that there is a community of support out there for Ahmed. There is Multicultural Family Base. So I was going in to see him at the nursery and running a group at the nursery, which he came to in his nursery year as well as P1. So that was continued to help support his transition from nursery up to P1, as well as that he had an art psychotherapist going out to work with him in the nursery setting.

In addition to that, he had the whole community from Multicultural Family Base, the families who he would meet at the termly ceilidhs. So he had a huge body of support, as well as the head of the nursery, the head of Lorne Primary when he finally made his transition up.

We were also invited along to the child planning meetings, so there was a number of supports there as well, such as additional support for learning, his EAL supports, et cetera. So he was really contained by a huge community of support.

End transcript: Video 4.3  Emma Watt – Multi-Cultural Family Base

Download

Video 4.3  Emma Watt – Multi-Cultural Family Base

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Comment

Perhaps you noted these sources of support?

• the UN programme that organised the family’s resettlement
• His family
• nursery and school staff (practitioners, headteacher)
• nursery children
• Multi-Cultural Family Base
• 4-2-7 project worker and other children in the group
• art therapist
• social workers
• wider multicultural community – children and parents attending the Ceilidh.

Maximise

Figure 4.6  Ahmed’s support network

It can help to map the support for a child and think about what the gaps might be, what your questions are and what you can do to strengthen support. It can help you see how the support available contributes to a child’s wellbeing. Making connections to wellbeing indicators will help you put together a Child’s Plan, which you’ll look at in Week 5.

You can try drawing a map of support in the extension activity at the end of the week.