Positive outcomes for children and young people Essay

1.1 Social factors Personal choice Some families decide that they do not wish to live or act in a way in which is viewed as normal. For instance a child may be from a travelling family. The outcome of this factor is that there are people which may not be able to relate to the child or young person’s families views. If a Child is from a travelling family there is a possibility that their development at school may be delayed due to being transferred from school to school. Poor parental supervision and neglect All children need a routine and a loving family home. Without these there may be conflict at their school because they do not know or understand acceptable boundaries. They may have vague view of their own abilities and may believe they are allowed to do what they want because they do not know any different. Lack of boundaries could result in them becoming involved in crime and anti-social behaviour. Neglect could lead to health problems through malnutrition. They may struggle to form social relationships because of their lack of personal hygiene. Poor clothing could lead to bulling and teasing, causing them to be withdrawn and become isolated. Offending or anti-social behaviour Children who miss behave and break the law may run the risk of being expelled from school. Also there is a possibility that their family could be evicted from their social housing accommodation. A child could be taken into care for various reasons such as a parent could be in prison.. The child may perceive the behaviour as normal or acceptable. It may result in them making some bad personal choices. Disability – if there is a parent or a child in the family that has a disability, this could affect the family especially if the child is used as a carer for their parents. In some cases respite care may be needed for families with family members that are disabled and this can cause family disruptions and inconsistency in a young person’s care especially if the respite care is for overnight visits away from home. Health support – whilst a child or family member is receiving support for healths issue this could possibly affect continuity of care, education, development and income. Addictions The impact on addictions can be varied. They can suffer health problems if their mother had a drug or alcohol problem during pregnancy. They may suffer from neglect, abuse or violence. If they have younger siblings they may find themselves responsible for their care and therefore may suffer stress and feel isolated. They may feel scared and find it difficult to speak to people for fear of getting in trouble or going into care. They may ultimately find themselves in care if the addiction results in their parents being unable to care for them. Bereavement and loss If a family loses a member of the family or a close friend this could affect the mental and in turn physical health of a family. Adults that have lost their partners may find the emotional strain difficult to cope with and may then find it more difficult to care for other children in the family. This can leave a child feeling very insecure and frightened. They may become quiet and withdrawn. They may become very emotional, clingy and tearful or become violent and abusive. They may feel angry, let down and abandoned. Their work and concentration at school may suffer as a result of any stress and worry they may be feeling. They may suffer poverty as a result of a fall in the household income and also suffer a dramatic change in lifestyle that leaves them confused. Economic factors Poverty Families that live in poverty are more likely to suffer mental and physical problems and therefore may not be able to provide for their child. Poverty can result from low income, unemployment, parental separation, illness or disability, addictions, or criminal activities. Children may suffer malnutrition or a poor diet as a result of their parents being unable to afford quality food. It is possible for children to also suffer health related issues. If a child is within a poverty stricken family and this is noticeable by the clothes the child wears and activity the child’s parents may not be able to afford then the child is at risk of potential bullying. Housing and community Families on a low income can be placed in local authority housing. If the family grows then this can cause overcrowding within the home. It can result in child having no privacy or space which can affect the child homework. If the home is within a dangerous area then this may result in the children becoming isolated, as their parents may be fearful of letting them out to play or they may themselves become involved in anti-social behaviour and criminal activities. Lack of academic achievement Children whose parents have had poor education or lack numeracy and literacy skills may struggle at school. Their parents may show little in their education and as a result they themselves may also lose interest and starts miss behaving in class or follow in the wrong crowd of friend which will lead to them failing in their education and struggle to get employment as an adult. Cultural factors Religious beliefs and customs Children may have to attend a school that is associated with their religion. It is always possible that this gives the child a different quality/balance of education. They may struggle to understand other people‘s religion or lifestyle choices. They may become confused or isolated and struggle to interact with the community. They may also experience or witness abuse on the grounds of their religious beliefs. Ethnic beliefs and customs Ethnic beliefs and customs can affect a child’s clothing, customs, dietary needs, education and other areas of their lives. Children may have different clothing which could lead to them being bullied. Their culture may view interaction between men and women in a different way. Children will struggle to recognise what is acceptable at school as it differs from home. This could cause them to come into conflict with school rules or to be perceived as mis behaving. 1.2 Low income for a family suffering from poverty can mean that children may not have the same advantages of other children not living in poverty. Such as not having â€Å"normal† clothes or accessories. Children may see this as a target for teasing and bullying. Poor housing could lead to ill health due to unacceptable standards within the home. Such as damp within the home or draft from poor quality of housing. Not having access to the correct food and warm clothing could affect health. Families that live in poverty are more likely to suffer mental and physical problems and therefore may not be able to provide for their child. Poverty can result from low income, unemployment, parental separation, illness or disability, addictions, or criminal activities. Children may suffer malnutrition or a poor diet as a result of their parents being unable to afford quality food. It is possible for children to also suffer health related issues. If a child is within a poverty stricken family and this is noticeable by the clothes the child wears and activity’s the child’s parents may not be able to afford then the child is at risk of potential bullying. 1.3 In accordance with Article 13 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child the outcomes of the Governments Every Child Matters framework and the Early Years Foundation Stage, children should be provisioned for by ensuring that children are involved and engaged with, allowing them to be heard, to make decisions, contribute their experiences and be supported and safeguarded throughout their development. Even from an early age, children’s choices, even simple ones, can have an impact on their life chances and outcomes such as choosing which toys to play with at pre-school or which friends to play with, a child may develop a friendship with another child who is perhaps a bit louder and boisterous and may display unwanted behaviour, this choice of friend may have a negative impact on the child’s behaviour at home or in other settings they move onto. Whilst the child has the right to choose their friends, it is our responsibility to involve the child in setting e xpectations of their behaviour and help them to make a positive contribution, which is one of the outcomes of the ECM framework. Children throughout their lives will make choices such as whether to eat healthily or unhealthily or start smoking or drinking, as any early years setting we ensure that we offer healthy snacks and encourage parents to supply healthy balanced lunch boxes, we involve the children in activities and discussions about the importance of healthy living but there will come a point where they can choose for themselves. If a child/young person chooses to eat unhealthily this will have a negative impact on their well-being, they could become overweight, develop diabetes and it could exclude them from taking part in activities, this could continue and have a negative knock on effect throughout their lives perhaps causing them to suffer low self esteem and become withdrawn from social situations. 2.1 The Every child matters outcomes are: Be Healthy – this also includes how our health is affected by our social, mental, emotional and physical well-being. The Government has a focus on healthy living for children. At my preschool we provide healthy snacks for the children. We also promote healthy choices, talk about healthy hearts and activities that teach them an active lifestyle.Stay Safe – we ensure children in our care are safeguarded. We have a named safeguarding officer who we can take any concerns to. We also have a robust safeguarding policy. Children know they can talk to any member of staff if they do not feel safe and they know they will be listened to.Enjoy and Achieve – we observe children so we understand their needs and can then plan more accurately for individual children.Make a Positive Contribution – we are continually assessing and developing our policies to ensure we are always making positive contributions to children’s developmentAchieve Economic Well-being  œ by ensuring we follow all the EYFS and Every Child Matters we are ensuring all children have the best start in life and can go on into adulthood and achieve economic well-being. 2.2 The importance of designing services is that each child, young person and their family will have different needs, requirements and barriers that can prevent their access and success. Securing positive outcomes and maximising life chances. It is important to design services that respond to each unique set of needs as each organisation supporting children and young people will be working on behalf of them to achieve the five positive outcomes of every child matters .A non-responsive service would be less accessible, date quickly, may discriminate, be unable to cope with queries, requests, break down and have the potentially to damage the interests of those in need, failing in its ability to safeguard children and the extended community.Issues involved with designing services: How networking between services happens Outreach services and what is available Communication & consultation Making effective change Flexibility in working together Care in preparation Integrating information from differing services Collaboration between services, children, young people, parents Ensuring information 2.3 Its very important to listen to children’s views and communicate with parents and respect their points of view. We need to communicate well with children and take into account that young children may use non verbal communication. If children and young people are given chances on what activity they would like to do they are making a decision which can help them become confident. Every week we let the children plan to play. They get to decide where exactly they would like to play within the nursery and if there are certain activity’s they would like to carry out. It is always the child’s decision. It allows the children to make the choice by themselves building up confidence, self-esteem and social skills. I really enjoy seeing the children gain their confidence and I can tell it makes them feel very important by being allowed to deal and make their own choices. I notice that if the child is allowed to make their own choice then they are much more focused on their chosen activity rather than being told what activity they are doing. Whilst doing this and the child is growing up they can take with them their decision making skills and apply them to adult life. 2.4 2-3 years of age.All children of different ages and stages will chose what they would like to play with within our setting. They do not get help from the adults unless a little support is needed on how to carry out a certain activity. Children will chose different activities to play with. One child will play with cars trains. Another child might like the sensory equipment such as paint and sand. As practitioners in our setting it is our job to provide a variety of resources for the child to make their own choices. This will encourage the child to explore the environment and play with the activities that they enjoy.At snack time we offer a variety of fruit and this is passed round the children sitting in a circle. Again the child is able to make the decision on what type of fruit they would like to eat.Ages 3-6 years.Again at this age within our setting we promote that every child has a variety of choices when planning their time in nursery. At this age I have noticed that because the children are getting older and developing personality and relationships with the other children they tend to stick to the same type of activity. 7- 9 years At this age they like to choose what kind of after school activities they would like to participate, this will be incorporated with their likes and dislikes. This is the time where they take more interest in their optional units at school, this again can be a battle that takes part with parents because the young adult may want to take options that the parents disagree with, however I feel that with both of my children I did let them choose their own optional units and they both did very well, I feel this was because they were interested in what they chose to do. They don’t have an option on certain subjects so it is important for them to help chose the ones that they can. Teenagers-19 years They will choose what work experience they would like to do. This will enable them to try a certain type of work before they go to college or university. They also begin to have a sense of style by choosing and buying their own clothes. Sometimes they will have dramatic choices in life to make, however they can sometimes make the wrong choices, this can include under-age drinking, drugs, smoking, gangs, crime and we can only be there to advise and help support the teenager we can reinforce what they are doing to themselves and others and offer support and guidance. They have to make certain life changing choices such as relationship, employment, which university or college these will be important changes that only they can make. 3.1 Disability can impact the life of a child because of discrimination. Within society children get discriminated against because of their disability. This could be by not being included within groups of children because of their disability. This happens often in our society because young people or children do not understand what disability is at a young age. The result of this discrimination happening could be that the child or young person could get depressed and have low self esteem from not been included. The lack of opportunity available for disabled people could effect disabled or young peoples lives this could be no disabled access on mainstream schools or colleges or on community centres which acts as a barrier for the disabled people when they are trying to lead normal lives. When disabled people cannot use public facilities as mentioned above, it also gives them a barrier to choice and they cannot choose to do things which are not available for them. An example of lack of choi ce is courses within colleges that are not available to the disabled because there is no access . 3.2 A person is often disabled as a result of their impairment unless an effort is made to allow them to fit in and feel accepted. It is possible to avoid or reduce the impact of the impairment so the person can have opportunities to make choices, develop their potential, become independent and play a full part in society. You should always keep a balance between being realistic about the limitations that a child’s impairment may cause, whilst at the same time having high expectations for their progress and achievements.Practitioners should have a positive attitude about their capacity to provide for disabled children’s requirements, and are ready to learn new skills such as sign language or using the Makaton system. The children have greater opportunities for making developmental progress. 3.3 Models of disability provide a framework for understanding the way in which people with impairments experience disability. The social model of disability identifies systemic barriers, negative attitudes and exclusion by society that means society is the main factor in disabling people. While physical, sensory, intellectual, or psychological variations may cause individual functional limitation or impairments these do not have to lead to disability unless society fails to take account of and include people regardless of their individual differences. The social model can affect daily practice as some people can not take part in a going to a swimming lesson unless it is specialised. An example of when this takes place is when workplaces do not have wheelchair ramps, so people in wheelchairs can not be employed there. This also happens in some restaurants. The medical model of disability is by which illness or disability being the result of a physical condition, and which is intrinsic to the individual may reduce the individual’s quality of life and causes clear disadvantages to the individual. The medical model tends to believe that ‘curing’ or at least ‘managing’ illness or disability mostly or completely revolves around identifying the illness or disability from an in-depth clinical perspective understanding it, and learning to ‘control’ and/or alter its course. 3.4 Speech and language therapy- they will usually work in partnership with parents, teachers and support staff and anyone else who has regular contact with the child and provide training and coaching sessions and provide them with ideas and strategies to put into place to help promote the child’s speech. I myself have sat in on a session with a child in school when the speech therapist came to have a meeting with a child and she gave me advice sheets on how best to help the child with his speech including picture cards with words on with either two, three and even four syllables and the child was encouraged to clap the amount of syllables while saying the word. Support from health professionals additional learning support- a child who has a disability like down syndrome may need extra support in the classroom to help them learn in my setting we have a child who comes in every Tuesday for social skills and he has his own teaching assistant to support him with his needs. A child with epilepsy is likely to require regular monitoring from health professionals and medication, which needs to be adjusted appropriately. Assistive technology- these would be anything which will help someone for example wheelchairs, hearing aids, walking frames in my setting we use large computer key boards for some children and for a child who is blind you could use software which reads text from a screen there are many different aids available for children and adults to help them with everyday tasks. 4.1 Diversity is about valuing individual difference. So ‘diversity’ is much more than just a new word for equality. A diversity approach aims to recognise value and manage difference to enable all employees to contribute and realise their full potential. Diversity challenges us to recognise and value all sorts of differences in order to make our environment a better place for everyone to work. Equality is about making sure people are treated fairly and given fair chances. Equality is not about treating everyone in the same way, but it recognises that their needs are met in different ways. Equality focuses on those areas covered by the law, namely the key areas of race, gender, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation, transgender and Age. People must not be unfairly discriminated against because of any of these factors and we must all contribute to creating a positive workplace and service delivery environment where discriminatory practices and discrimination no longer happen. Inclusion is about ensuring that children and young people, whatever their background or situation, are able to participate fully in all aspects of the life in school. It is not about viewing everyone as the same or providing the same work, but about providing the same opportunities and access to a high quality of education. 4.2 By treating all families equally this as a positive impact on the child because they can see that their family is being respected and will raise the child’s self esteem. In my setting we promote different cultures and religions every year we celebrate the Chinese New Year and children are taught about some of their traditions and we make dragons and red envelopes with money in and this year in PE we even used materials for the children to dress at dragons and do a dance. My setting provides excellent equipment and resources to enable children to be included and the correct training of staff. We have wall displays about others counties and provide many books on other cultures and religions in the library we display work the children have done for parents to see. We adapt activities to meet the needs of the child and also adapt ways of communicating including visual aids, body language, and speaking slower and face-to-face.Speech therapists promote this by providing different types of communicating methods. With the child and the parents. Behavioural support will come into school and give information and advice on the best ways to tackle bad behaviour and they will also work with the parents.Education support services will monitor attendance and provide a link between school, parent and pupils where necessary and they will develop a supportive relationship between them. They will give advice on issues such as bullying and also they will take legal action against parents if their child is not accessing an education.