essay showing the issues

KE312 TMA 01


W4745067

a) Critically discuss the range of factors that affect communication with children. (1000 words)





Chapter 1 Communicating with children

Gill Crow, Pam Foley and Stephen Leverett





The introduction summary begins by defining communication as the fundamental nature of positive relationships, good practice and effective services for children with the following:

Knowing how to interact with children in ways that support the development of their abilities to think, learn and form good relationships with the people around them is a core skill for everyone working with children .

Before adding that the authors offer guidance for improving communication skills and explain just how this can contribute to children’s social and emotional development.



On page 22 the range of factors that affect communication with childen are defined as three. The first expressive skills for stating a point of view non defensively including emotional skills to express feelings.

The second is defined as listening skills for understanding another persons point of view, including the ability to wait before expressing the opinion of yourself in order to understand those of others. Examples of this include the vicars tea party where the interrogation is mild and set at ‘up to anything interesting.’ To which the response should be accurate, I tended to focus on my studies and history rather than what is theologically required such as “…well do I need confession for buying a porn mag with the girls from the youth club in, challenging one of the mothers about it and mailing it to the vicars wife to gte them on the housing register. Then when in relapse I bought them again and gave them to social services to protect them from the photographer when hes the commissioned lay minister. For which I’d rather be either Jewish or a reformed roman catholic as this position is anti many in the local Church of England as ‘art appreciators’ that includes Page 3 upwards on the relevant scale of imagery.”

Finally Crow et al define process skills that negotiate and manage the way people interact, identifying what information is needed and is appropriate. This requires an ability to manage and terminate the conversation. The problem with said position and line of argument is that it requires a belief that the mentally ill, disabled and aged can communicate with children as much as practicioners. This in a church setting requires a childrens advocate and interdisciplinary childrens ctte across all the youth work areas of the given parish area. That way the Scouts, Brigades and Guides can liase into provision and other churches that cooperate have statutory function into canon so that all can deal with their diverging perspectives on the issues involved in accordance with the law of the UK state parliament.



b) How can practitioners become better at communicating with the children they work with? (1000 words)

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Childrens practicioners are best at communicating with children in the context of positive families and relationships. The main part of the text that deals with this is chapter 3 by Rixon. In that he notes that the “…ability to form positive working relationships is fundamental to all those involved in practice with children and their families.”



On the DVD about Saltley Cluster there are examples of good practice from a range of practicioners, such as being reflective about what the children did during playtime and children build up their own profiles and develop into education plans that develop into learning plans at Further education colleges and universities. Valerie explains that that’s “…because we work with what they’re interested in and because we do that, we promote language, we promote all kinds of learning and… they’re moving at their own pace ”

Her examples is that a child “used the filiming as a medium for speaking, she uses the karaoke machines and the puppets that we have as a medium of communicating with us. ” Hence Valerie says “Being able to communicate is a real asset when working with children…” with body language being “so important” as well as the way that you behave to other children in front of them.



These diverse core skills are so important to show that theres a person whos both caring and empathetic and can feed into her colleagues’ Anita Chauhan is one of them in the family support team which manages housing advice, child protection etc under the Every Child Matters initiative brought in by government to include health provision. This is expanded with a discussion about stopping smoking and as once child Mustaf puts it “They learnt us about how to fund raise like activities so we don’t get bored…. They give you like, like after, they give you, after when we got out to our classes…” examples include quizzes and certificates. An example of this is given by Joanna and Simone in their class presentation.



Joanna and Simonnes example of best parcticve involves a dialogue with the children as to good diet, no smoking and alcohol and the basics of the criminal justice process.



Miss Howells approach is to invite all of the parents into school “…to work with the children, so they feel comfortable coming into school and so we can have lots of fun working together” Called the Year 3 connect club, the children come in and set challenges that are given to them. Some had their brothers and sisters there. One mum observed that they had learnt a lot from the experience.This is the every child matters initiative.

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