21 replies to this topic

[Shelley1]

I wish to display a paragraph which explains what a keyworker is, for parents. Does anyone have one I can look at please?

[Marion]

A Key Worker is responsible for liaising with the child’s carer, informing the carer of activities in which the child has participated. She/he has the responsibility for monitoring your child’s development in the six areas of learning outcomes. She/he will be happy to share with you the development sheets that are completed on a regular basis and work with you if your child needs any extra assistance in reaching the desirable learning outcomes. She/he will not be with your child every minute of the day as we encourage interaction between all staff and children - but she/he will keep a watchful eye on him/her. Your child’s Key Worker’s name is on the notice board.

[Suzanne W]

 Keyworkers_in_Pre.doc   26K   497 downloadsThis is what the Pre school Learning Alliance says about keyworkers.

[Beau]

Mine is pretty short and sweet!

WHAT IS A KEYPERSON?

DEFINITION
• A key person has special responsibility for a set amount of children. Parents and children will always know the name of their key worker. This will be given to you at the start of your child’s first term.

AIM
• A key person will ensure that your child’s needs are recognised and met at each session.

MAIN DUTIES
• To help your child settle at our playgroup.
• Talk with the parents about their child.
• Keeping an extra special eye open to how your child is settling during the first couple of sessions.
• Assisting the child to integrate into the playgroup if necessary.
• To provide emotional needs to your child if required.
• To make sure if with carers and parents that the child’s race, culture, religion, language and family values are being met.
• To observe, keep records and monitor the child’s progress and talking and encouraging parents to participate in their child’s development.
• To feed back information that might be important to parents or any worries the key worker has come across.
• To continue to respect that the parent and child’s information is remaining confidential.
• To work in conjunction with the parents in a statutory and professional manner.

IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT A KEY PERSON DOES NOT

1. Shadow the children throughout the session.
2. Only work with the key children they have been given.
3. Prevent other adults from developing a relationship with the key children they have been given.

[Running Bunny]

Peter Elfer describes it as:

"The key person appraoch is a way of working in nurseries in which the whole focus and organisation is aimed at enabling and supporting close attachments between individual children and individual nursery staff. The key person approach is an involvement, an individual and reciprocal commitment between a member of staff and a family. It is an approach that has clear benefits for all involved."

Just to confuse matters, he also makes a distinction between Key Person and Key Worker:

"A 'key worker' is often used to describe a role in which the focus is on liasison or coordinating between different professionals or disciplines, making sure that services work in a coordinated way."

A key person is listed as benefits for babies and young children:

• making each child feel special and individual, cherished and thought about by someone particular while they are away from home
• supporting the child to experience a close relationship that is affectionate and reliable

Parents, particularly mothers:

• ensuring parents have the opportunity to build a personal relationship with 'someone' rather than 'all of them' working in the nursery.
• bringing peace of mind and the possibility of building a partnership with professional staff who may share with them the pleasures and stresses of child-rearing.

A great book is: Key persons in the nursery if you are interested.

[Wolfie]

One of the Principles into Practice cards in the EYFS pack is all about the keyperson approach - it's very readable, maybe you could pinch some quotes from that?

[ReaderRabbit]

Does anyone have an idea of how we can make best use of the keycarer system? I am the voluntary business manager of a committee run sessional preschool and we employ 5 staff (manager plus 4 staff). The manager works every day but the other staff each work either 3 or 4 days depending on the number of children (max 24 but usually around 17-19).

So my question is - how do we agree who the key carer is as the staff aren't always in when the children are? Should we be allocating the children 2 key carers or should the manager (who is supernumary) take over those children when their allocated key carer is not on duty?

Any ideas will be greatfully received, as we are taking the opportunity of the introduction of EYFS to look at all of our practices, including the distribution of staffing hours.

RR

[anne1]

I allocate child to a keyworker from their first visit so take into account the days the staff and children do. We have some children who do 1 or 2 sessions a week and some that do 4 or 5. As most staff work 3-4 days there are days when a keyworker is not present at their key childs session. I do not see this as a problem as it is wise for children to build relationships with all members of staff, as their will be times when a member of staff is away on holiday or sickness or they could decide to leave the setting. All staff are aware of the keyworkers for each child and when a member of staff is not there we work together to interact with those children. We also keep any short observations of the child and pass onto the keyworker when they are next in.
It does not present any problems for us. We also sometimes swap keyworkers if the child makes a strong relationship with another member of staff. I think it is important to be flexible and work with the children, family and staff to make a good working relationship.

I do have a question for everybody though. We have always referred to our staff as Keyworkers, but I have been told by the EYDCP that we should now be saying keyperson. As anyone else been told this?
Anne

[ReaderRabbit]

thanks for your reply Anne1 - it was most useful.

RR

[HappyMaz]

I do have a question for everybody though. We have always referred to our staff as Keyworkers, but I have been told by the EYDCP that we should now be saying keyperson. As anyone else been told this?
Anne

Another term is 'key carer' which seems to emphasise the fact that the person is there to care for the child and build up a close relationship. Some people and organisations prefer this to 'key worker' which can be felt to have overtones of the social worker about it.

Depends on your point of view, really!

[Shiny]

[quote name='anne1' date='Apr 13 2008, 08:16' post='129013'
I do have a question for everybody though. We have always referred to our staff as Keyworkers, but I have been told by the EYDCP that we should now be saying keyperson. As anyone else been told this?
Anne
[/quote]
We too were told this last year and it has been a pain changing it in prospectus, policies etc. There is always one you miss and you don't notice until you print it out!!!!

A key worker is something completely different!

'What is a "key worker"?
Police, Nurses, Teachers, social workers, Heath care assistants, Support workers, Cleaners and generally staff who play a crucial role in the social services sector.'

[saturnpa]

In a full day care nursery, how many key children is it usual for a key worker to have assigned to her?

[Inge]

A bit of a how long is a piece of string question..

Lots of differences depending on circumstances..
how many children
how many staff,
part time?
full time?
Hours attending
a key person for every time they are in may be more than 1 person per child..

It is such a list of variable that it really does depend on the setting..
we divide the children amongst all staff equally.. so we all have the same number of children..

Inge

[Shiny]

I am preschool and we currently have about 10 each. This does go up with more children joining. In Reception classes teachers can have up to 30!!

[LJW]

At the end of the day is it better to use the terminology Key Person as that is what is in EYFS document and what Ofsted will be looking for. What's in a name.... You know what Ofsted are like, why give them cannon fodder?! We all know who we are and what our jobs are, irrespective of the name, lol!