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Hi

We have just had our Ecers and scored low in diversity!

 

Now I have looked around I see what our advisor means.

We have the usual coloured doll, images, and some books but actually lack anything else! How bad is that! We have no children at present from a multi-cultural background either!

 

How do you show diversity? :(

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We have different costumes and things in role play like rice cooker, wok, ethnic foods, cookery books from different countries, we have various musical instruments and music cd,s that originate from different countries....but rather than just looking at the multi-cultural side of diversity we have books, posters and resources promoting sexual equality and giving positive images of people with disabilities......I'm sure others will be able to give you lots more ideas as well

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I used to make picture books showing everyone and anyone. I'd find them in magazines and newspapers, leaflets and postcards, birthday cards ECT. Stick them into a scrap book. I used to add popular logos from macdonalds to the lottery to toys, the children loved 'reading' the logos. See if you can get some newspapers in other languages too.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

We have welcome signs in several languages including British Sign Language

Dressing up clothes and food items that are multi-cultural

Books that are multi-cultural and promote positive images in respect of disability

Miniature figures for the dolls house that promote positive images in respect of disability

A set of festivals DVDs in which children of pre-school age celebrate a range of different festivals and which have a narrative in child friendly language

Mantra lingua (talking pen) resources - using this we have put together a photo picture book of things that happen in the setting and have bagged (arm twisted) keen and willing parents with EAL to record labels in their home languages (so far we have Russian, Danish, Japanese, Turkish and English with Spanish coming soon)

Lots of home made display boards with multi-cultural images for different topics

 

Hope that helps

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We need to establish means by which we can manage diversity within the organisation, We all display different characteristics and perspectives which help to enrich the workplace-

· By bringing in a wide range of thinking and ideas

· Help to reflect the society in which we work

· Service users can connect with the people working in out projects

 

Think about the ways in which these objectives can be met.

 

We can enhance the quality of the services delivered in the workplace by having a multi-disciplinary workforce with a rich mix of backgrounds, knowledge, abilities and skills.

Valuing diversity, respecting and validating differences enables engagement with families from a wide range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds..

In my workplace, establishing a personal connection, respecting parent's knowledge and understanding and valuing their input is paramount to success. If we are sensitive when communicating, in a way which does not patronise, or make mothers feel inadequate as parents; we are more likely to engage with those parents who are less well-informed and lack confidence.

We can increase personal awareness and understanding of individuals from different groups/communities by never making assumptions, assuming differences, not similarities and asking colleagues for feedback and advice from those with experience in diverse backgrounds, constantly checking our assumptions to make sure we clearly understand the situation.

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All well and good Carla, except the glaring assumption that your passage makes is that only mothers do mothering (or are you suggesting that only mothers feel inadequate as parents?). And don't get me started on those parents "who are less well informed". I find that patronising in the extreme.

 

All that aside though, how would your policy statement inform the advice you would give to support Skippy to develop this area of provision?

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My apologies for the rushed post earlier,

 

In the short time I had this morning I pasted a passage from some of the information about where I work and yes, the majority of our policies refer to mothers, apart from our handout carer policies as we have minimal or no access to fathers/extended family http://my.actionforchildren.org.uk/styal-mother-and-baby-support-unit/story-sacks-help-local-mothers-read-their-babies and I left so much of the policy out because it really does not apply (without huge adaptations) to community based settings. http://www.actionforchildren.org.uk/about-us/jobs/equality-and-diversity I suppose respecting diversity and equality underpins my practice and I seek to demonstrate this through everything that I do. Resources and equipment are only a small part of 'Diversity' in the setting and it's a good job because our resources are minimal, we have no funding for equipment and I joined this thread in the hope I may find some good ideas to improve our setting. One thing I have found to be truly helpful; is good Equality and Diversity training.

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Sue J, can you tell me where you got the ' set of festivals DVDs in which children of pre-school age celebrate a range of different festivals and which have a narrative in child friendly language', sound really good, a different dimension on what we already have to raise diversity awareness.

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My apologies for the rushed post earlier,

Ah yes, I can see now and I'm sorry for being snappy.

 

The ECERS is specifically an environment audit, so a lot of the scale is based around the resources on offer. Somewhere I have the supporting publication which goes into much more detail about what each scale point 'looks like' in practice. I'll see if I can dig it out.

 

For what its worth I have the Child's Eye Media videos - probably in the lock up. Our children loved them and they sparked off so much 'spontaneous' role play (although the Chinese dumplings were disgusting, but that's another story). :o

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There are lots of ways to embrace diversity because we are a very diverse society! In our area of Cumbria, the last census found us to be 98% white British, so culturally, we are poor. This being the case, we have had to look at other things and our entrance board with our WOW slips says "We are all different but we are all incredible". We look at different family groupings -we seem to have quite a few of those! And different abilities or disabilities we have. We enjoy finding out aspects of Chinese New Year, Hanukkah etc. with the resources we've built up over the years. We also celebrate the diversity of things like height and hand sizes, taste and preference, eye end hair colour. I look upon it as the outward signs of difference and how we are all the same really.

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