1.4 Inclusive relationships with children
It is always important to develop inclusive relationships with children and key to doing this is knowing the children in your setting and understanding their behaviour. How children express themselves and how they behave can help you to identify additional needs they may have. The CIRCLE Collaboration materials have been developed to help ELC practitioners understand children’s behaviour.
Using the CIRCLE approach
In 2011 a group of professionals with expertise in child health and education created a toolkit aimed at supporting practitioners to understand children’s behaviour. (‘CIRCLE’ stands for ‘Child Inclusion Research into Curriculum Learning Education’.)
This resource is available to settings working in Edinburgh. If you work in this local authority you could talk to your colleagues to find out more. If you work elsewhere, perhaps your authority and health board have produced similar toolkits or resources to help you.
There are other online resources available that you might find useful in helping you reflect on the environment you are creating and how you respond to children as a team.
Here is a list put together by NHS Lothian [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .
Find what out what your local authority has to offer. You might find resources outside Scotland helpful too. Take a look at this free online resource from PenGreen:
Adapting the environment for a child with ASN