Continuing Professional Development Workshops

As with all professionals, quality childminders should take the opportunity to continue to develop their knowledge and skills throughout their career.  

This series of workshops offer childminders the opportunity to continue to broaden their knowledge base, enhance their skills and improve the quality of their childminding service.  

The range of topics will grow in response to childminders demands and Care Commission requirements in line with good practice.  

1. Supporting Children's Learning and Development:
To actively promote every aspect of the development of babies and children, childminder's should be prepared to extend their knowledge of child development and work with children with a genuine respect for their needs.  Children have physical, emotional and cognitive needs - but how can you meet these needs without a deeper understanding?

This workshop will explore:
• How children learn
• Identify different aspects of child development
• Identify learning opportunities in every day routines
• Identify the need to monitor each child's progress
• How to draft a plan

2. Equality of Opportunity:
Equality of opportunity is about making sure that everyone has a fair and equal chance in life.  Children need to feel valued and learn to respect one another.
This workshop will identify and explore all aspects of equal opportunities which directly affect your childminding practice by:
• Exploring understanding and recognition of equality of opportunities issues
• Exploring good practice in relation to childminding
• Identifying and challenging discriminatory practices

3. Positive Behaviour Management:
Managing children's behaviour in a positive way is essential for maintaining a relaxed atmosphere in a childminding service. Childminders play an important role in building a child's self-esteem and social skills, and a positive environment will assist this role.

This workshop focuses on three main areas, namely:
• Examining childminder's expectations of children's behaviour
• Identifying reasons why children sometimes behave in difficult ways
• Identifying positive ways of encouraging acceptable behaviour

4. Supporting Children and Families Through Change:
Good relationships with parents and children are vital in a childminding setting, as they benefit everyone, especially children.  This is because good relationships can create a welcoming and secure atmosphere for children, which in turn helps young children to settle and relax.  Good relationships also benefit the quality of interaction between the setting and the parents.  Where relationships are good, parents are more likely to be able to share information, make comments and take an interest in what their children have been doing.  This in turn benefits the children and emotionally they may find it easier to move from the care of one person to another.

This workshop will identify the needs of parents and children by:
• Exploring separation fears of parents and children
• Identifying the need for pre-contact
• Establishing settling in procedures
• Developing an Admissions Policy

5. Independence and Self-Esteem:
The idea behind providing an enabling environment is to help children gain independence skills, make choices and gradually take responsibility.  This helps children to learn that they are competent and can be trusted and so supports their self-esteem.  Children need adults to help then ‘have a go’ and a positive environment means that children do not worry about making mistakes as they know the adult will be on hand to support them without 'taking over'.  Children can learn to make choices and take responsibility only if they are feeling secure and know that adults' reactions will be supportive.

This workshop will explore:
• How routines support learning and development
• How to deal positively with conflict
• Facilitate children's personal care
           
6. How Am I Doing? Self-Assessment and Grading:
At the heart of the self-evaluation process are two specific questions:

• How am I doing?
• How do I know?

The National Care Standards (NCS) underpin the work of the Care Commission and care services must adhere to them in providing their services.  

In developing the self-assessment process, the Care Commission has developed a set of Quality Themes and Quality Statements, to link to the NCS.  Each quality theme has been matched to the most relevant Care Standard.  Quality statements will provide a prompt to you answering these questions, and this will help you grade the quality of your service.

The grading system is to enable service providers to be more actively involved in their annual inspection: the inspection should be seen as an event, not a process. By inviting you to answer a series of questions based on quality themes, you can link self-assessment to reporting on performance, planning for improvement and the action taken to achieve this.

This workshop will introduce Quality Themes and Quality Statements and help you evidence and grade the quality of your service.


7. Planning: Principles, Practice and Paperwork:
Why plan?  We plan so we can meet children's needs in all areas of development, and so that each child can meet their full potential.  Children are happy and fulfilled if their needs are being met, planning helps us meet these needs.

This workshop will help childminders explore how planning will:
• Enhance their own enjoyment, satisfaction and confidence in a job well done
• Develop their knowledge and understanding of child development
• Help them evidence Standard 5


8. Child Protection:
It is important to recognise that child abuse is a reality in our society.  Childminders have a vital frontline role in protecting children and obtaining support for children and families under stress.  It is essential that childminders are equipped to play their role in this task and can recognise abuse and have knowledge of child protection procedures.

This job-specific workshop will emphasise a pro-active approach, to equip you with the knowledge and skills to minimise the risk of abuse.  It will explore:
• Vulnerability of the childminder as a lone worker
• Roles and responsibilities of childminder and of key professionals
• Development of child protection statement
• Reporting procedures