Safeguarding Children At Home

[Guest]

Hi everyone,

 

Bit of a strange question but i'm trying to prepare for my suitable person interview and came across a question from Ofsted regarding how do we talk to parents about keeping children safe at home. Off the top of my head i thought about leaflets and posters displayed in the setting, any other ideas would be much appreciated!

 

Thanks

 

Joanna

[Upsy Daisy]

There is the obvious thing that all practitioners do, although it's not necessarily talking about it, which to set examples to parents by keeping the children safe in our settings and being clear about why we do it.

[Guest]

I had to chuckle at the thought that we are not only expected to keep them safe at the setting, but also somehow to do that for them when they are at home too.

 

Where is the parent's responsibility in all this?

 

In answer to your question, I think posters, leaflets, informal chats, policies on things like hot drinks (and more importantly an explanation of WHY we have that policy).

 

I think I would have just checked with the Ofsted inspector about whether we are social workers or educators, if she had asked me this in my suitable person interview.

 

[Guest]

Thank you, I know it does seem odd that we are expected to keep the children safe at school and home!

 

Joanna

[JacquieL]

I think it would come under raising awareness among parents, which is something we do regularly. Just things like adding something to the weekly newsletters, for example last week we added some guidelines on fire safety and how to tackle talking about this with young children. We also added a short paragraph on the recent warnings about incidents with nappy bags. Inviting parents into a session on stranger danger with their children is something else we have done.

Drug awareness is something else I have done with young children using a poorly Teddy and then invited parents in to observe a session teaching Teddy about medicines and what is safe for him and what isn't. I would see this as part of educating young children with the support of the team of the parent/setting partnership and also ticks the box of communicating with parents.

[JacquieL]

Bluebells something else you could talk about is road safety as this is something I'm sure we all tackle at some time with children. You can raise awareness with parents through a newsletter or perhaps a display done by the children, posters, leaflets or invite them in to see what has been going on within the setting.

[Guest]

Thanks so much guys, theres some good ideas there. Very much appreciated.

[Guest]

And don't forget Stranger Danger!

[Guest]

E-safety is a big one too. Perhaps not so relevant for nursery children, but more and more children are accessing computers at home at a younger age now and its something for parents to be aware of. At this age its more about parental controls so they don't see anything inappropriate by accident, but its always good to start educating parents early about things like this.

Edited October 26, 2010 by Guest