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There are many different reasons why it is important for practitioners to ensure the setting welcomes and provides for all babies and their families.
One reason is putting a system into place that supports baby’s individual needs. It's important that practitioners are always making sure that they are treating all babies equally. It's important that all babies individual needs are being met. Babies will sometimes have different needs from each other and practitioners should be ensuring that they are making sure they are following and meeting these individual needs. Some babies might have to have a bottle all the time and they will need to have a certain amount of ounces a milk each time, so practitioners need to make sure they are remembering to do this every day. Some babies may have cow's milk and then other babies may have formula milk, so it is significant that all practitioners are aware of what milk each baby needs if they have a bottle. This is why its practitioner’s roles to make sure these babies are getting their milk when they need it. Other individual needs babies may need is a certain amount of sleep, in my baby placement some of the babies are only allowed either an hour’s sleep or an hour and a half rather than sleeping until they wake up. So the key workers in my setting have to write down what time the babies go to sleep for all the babies and record it every ten minutes but they have to make sure they are keeping an eye on the time so that the babies that have a set time to sleep don't go over their amount of time allowed. Other examples of babies individual needs may be using certain nappies, a baby in my placement uses the washable nappies where they are washed and used again, babies having certain food's and not allowed to have some foods, in my baby placement some of the babies are not allowed any sugary foods so when the rest of the babies are having the food with sugar in it the other babies will have either fruit or yogurt. So it's vital that practitioners are always ensuring that they are meeting all babies individual needs no matter what they are and ensuring they are doing this at the appropriate times and on a daily basis to ensure that babies care needs are being met.
It is important that practitioners are always ensuring that they are providing an enabling environment that reflects those that using it meaning that it will help to reflect the baby’s personality and encouraging them to grow in confidence when they are in their environment. Environments in childcare setting help babies to interact with other babies and other adults and to form trusting relationships with them. A baby room should be calming and relaxing for babies, helping them to feel safe and secure in the environment they are in. Environments should be colourful and bright so it’s made interesting and exciting for the babies, this will help babies to show their personalities and it will let them explore and experience new opportunities when they are in a childcare setting. Childcare environments should help babies to be confident to want to do things on their own and to improve their overall development.
Practitioners can show an inclusive approach to babies and their families by showing positive attitudes to both babies and their families. Practitioners can do this by being a role model to babies by showing them and teaching them how to behave and to stop bad behaviour. Practitioners can demonstrate things to babies like how to play with a certain toy or just ways of helping the babies use their imagination. Practitioners should always be showing a positive attitude by smiling at babies and being welcoming to babies and their parents. Practitioners should make sure they are happy when they are around babies so that babies don't pick up bad vibes or end up being bored because staff are not be enthusiastic. Practitioners should always make sure that are always praising babies when they have done something that is good or clever so that the babies can feel a sense of achievement and to know that they can do things on their own without always having support or help from adults. It is important key workers are demonstrating positive attitudes towards babies and their families or they are working with. "Children and their families need to feel that they are valued for themselves, for who they are" (Thornes et al, Page 89, 2008).
If key workers are showing negative attitudes it could lead to them showing discriminatory practice which can affect the feelings of self-worth. Practitioner’s attitudes towards babies and other people will affect the way they will act and behave towards babies, their families and other adults. If practitioners are indicating positive attitudes towards babies and their families it will enable them to feel good and it will help babies and their families to know and understand that they are being valued and to gain and improve their self-esteem. In order for practitioners to show that they are professional and that they are showing positive attitudes is to understand the importance of working with parents and carers, it's important for practitioners to respect their views, opinions and their wishes for their baby, they should also be able to regconise that they are the people that know their baby best and what is the best for their baby. In order for this to happen practitioners need to understand and make sure that they are valuing baby’s cultural background and taking into account their different customs, values and their spiritual beliefs.
In order for practitioners to promote an inclusive approach when working with babies and their families is by making sure that they are valuing diversity. Practitioners need to understand and value that some babies and their families have different beliefs and religions that all practitioners need to respect. Practitioners also need to understand that some babies may have different cultures so them and their families may do things differently like eating different foods, celebrating different festivals and celebrations. This should be taken into account by practitioners and they need to ensure that they are showing diversity in the setting by celebrating the festivals and the different religions, like the Hindu festival, Dwali and other festivals like these, this will show that the setting is showing diversity and so that the baby’s parents feel that their child is being included in the setting and that practitioners are understanding some babies differences. The First step in trying to implement anti-discriminatory and anti-bias practice is to be able to regconise the diversity of our society today and to be able to value this diversity, looking at it as a positive rather than a negative factor. "In order to be able to do this, childcare workers will need to adopt an approach that is non-judgmental when working with families" (Thornes et al, Page 23, 2008). This means that the differences in family styles, beliefs, traditions and most importantly how practitioners are caring for children should never be judged or discriminated as being better or worse and should always be respected. Different families will provide and care for their baby in a variety of different ways and if childcare practice that is anti- discriminatory will ensure they are meeting the needs of all families within a framework that respects them being individual.
It is imperative that practitioners discuss with parents/carers and involve them in important discussions when it comes to baby’s development. It is important that practitioners are always communicating with parents about their baby’s development making sure they are feeding back this information to parents/carers every day. In my baby placement they have to write dairy's everyday on what the babies do in their day, one part in the dairy will tell you about what exciting and new things their baby has done in the setting, it will also tell you about what the babies can already do so parents know what their babies can do when in the setting. Parents can then implement this into the baby’s home life. Parents also need to be involved in decision making when babies may be really struggling with their development which then means that they may need some extra help, so parents should be included in the decision on what's the best action to take in order to help support the babies that will need the extra help to ensure they are developing and working towards reaching their full potential.
Another way in which practitioners can promote an inclusive approach when working with babies and their families is by practitioner always ensuring that they are reviewing their policies and procedures on a regular basis this is in order to make sure the setting is safe for children to be in and that is supporting and helping babies with their development. It's also important for practitioners to review their policies and procedures that in order to make sure that the setting is still safe for the babies to be in, ensuring that all staff's CRB's have been renewed to ensure they are safe to be in the setting and that staff are ensuring that babies safety is paramount and they come first. Policies and procedures have to be reviewed to ensure they are still being implemented in the setting. Policies and procedures are in settings to keep babies safe and to stop them from being put in danger or from being abused.
For practitioners to be providing an inclusive approach is by practitioners are always ensuring that they are being reflective in their practice. To become a reflective practitioner needs to develop and extend their own skills, knowledge and understanding of their work with babies. Practitioners also need to think about what they like to do in their childcare setting and what they don't tend to enjoy that much, this will help practitioners to understand and work out what their strengths and weaknesses are. Once they have done that practitioners can then reflect on their own practice to see what they are good at and what they may need to improve to make them the best possible practitioner as they possibly can in order to care and support babies with their care and learning needs and their development. A Reflective practitioner is someone that will learn from their own experiences and that will adopt their practice using critical analysis.
Emily Reeves
Site Number: 643:00
Pin Number: 10/681373
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