Education Children Services Analysis - Essay Example

? Education Education Children often ask adults for guidance, respect and patience and this should include the right to hear the voice of children. The various contexts of decision making include participation in the process of individual decision making, service development, research, participation in communities and the ability to influence public awareness and policy. Children are have the will of participating in decision making which often extends beyond their immediate needs and their personal individual interests but in reflection to other contexts. For participation to be effective there should be the presence of required skills and knowledge and a critical reflection and evaluation of the participation process and outcomes. Participation are all activities that are involved in the developing of opportunities to express a view influence certain diction that is made or achieve change that is desired. Participation and involvement of children should be one that is informed and willing including the presence of marginalized children and those with different ages and abilities (Foley and Leverett 2008). Some of the key child services include family care and this is the care given to children such as day care services for children aged five years and under, practical home help or services offered by health or education authorities. Child protection is a service offered to young children who are at high risks of undergoing significant risks, therefore, the child’s situation is looked into and necessary action is taken to keep the child safe and promote their welfare. Foster care is another child service that offers residential care for children that are unable to live with their parents for short term or long term basis; there are information and advice given to families on the care given to foster children. In organizing improved services for the children, it is advisable to use constructive campaign route because it will be essential in separating objectives for petition for all services offered to children as opposed to representing only the needs of the children. Constructive campaigner is able to put emotions on the back-burner making the focus squarely on the big picture; in addition to this, it will consider long-term objective and not shot-term. A constructive campaigner is able to work together with parents because of the understanding that working with parents gives them more voice over the progress of the children and great influence when dealing with professionals (Foley and Leverett 2008). Active involvement of children in decision making Having the right knowledge among children is a contested are and with the recognition of the law, values and policies in shaping the activities done by practitioners, they are required to have ethical responsibility during the decision making in order to intervene in the lives of children. Approaches to decision making that is transparent, based on a careful consideration and accountable considers compelling evidence on the effects of interventions on various groups, communities and welfare individuals (Stanier 2009). Training of practitioners on matters related to safeguarding of children makes them be aware of the procedures and responsibilities, and what works well in protecting child environment and during the assessment and intervention of family lives. One of the instances was that of Macdonald that reviewed evidence of the consequences of child abuse where interventions were successful at a broader primary prevention and a secondary and tertiary work. Knowing involves the application of rigorous approach to research evidence and this involves systematic review of the research evidence while having an explicit methodology and placing weight on the research outcome studies. Potential limitations to, or tensions within, children’s ability to shape services Rixon (2008) states that there is a lot of focus that has been put on evidence-based practice which has been criticized as an overemphasis on positive approaches above other knowledge types and it is able to minimize complexities that may occur with family engagement. There are evidence from different countries and settings which make it difficult to apply to new contexts; moreover, evidence-based practice has been on the rise and this is linked to increased preoccupation with risks and the need to have certainty level at times of high uncertainty. Evidence-based practice is an important element in the discussions on the nature of education, given interdisciplinary nature of the discussion and knowledge which is why we should learn together (Baran and Correia 2009). Conceptualizing the involvement of children as measures of participation The rights of protection provision and participation overlap and instead of relatively looking at participation as being fundamental and different, it is viewed as an integral part of good quality provision and protection (Habashi, Wright and Hathcoat 2012). UNCRC article has a main focus on having standards against which services are involved in the provision and protection which can be measured, these includes being informed, hence this service involves the presence of consultation between children and parents. Development of child participation is influenced by an ongoing interest and activity that is associated with user involvement which has developed through the historic grass roots activism of the peer group pressure which include those of the disabled people, older people, people experiencing difficulties in learning or people who use mental health services. Many of these groups have had the desire to see improvements in welfare services and that is where their focus campaigns have been headed. Children that are in contact with welfare services have the ability to develop their own grass root organizations and this is evident in the campaigns that have been carried out by regional young Carers projects. Children from Looked After care system have also been actively involved with the National association of young People and such an organization focuses on promoting awareness and campaigns on issues such as restrains by social care workers. Circle time is an approach the enables children participation even though it raises several practical issues that need consideration when undertaking participatory work with the group of children. This approach is appropriate for use in early year’s settings and schools and it helps children develop communication and self-confidence while they are within groups. Differences present in circle time can also be applied to a wide range of participatory perspectives that include resident groups and groups of young carers. This approach is valuable when helping young children develop social awareness and this is a prerequisite for any social participation. Trait contends that social awareness will come about in a gradual manner through experience gained by a child after meeting and interacting with others, this influences a child’s ability to decenter; ability to decenter means being able to take on board alternative viewpoints. Role of the practitioner can be informed by the audio-visual material in the module Practitioners that have an established professional training have been socialized into a particular view having an established frame of reference, hence a key task practitioners perform during the interagency is to enable them question these perspectives, consider methods of constructing knowledge socially and understand the world view of others. Interprofessional education is able to bring students from different disciplines together during their training session and this provides an ideal opportunity for establishing a way of thinking in a practitioner’s career outset. Practitioners are required to be empowered so that they are in a position of asking what they know and who they are collectively (Zaghlawan and Ostrosky 2011). During the day-to-day practice, practitioners should be in a position of reaching a common understanding of the issues and problems they face before being in a position of moving to find effective solution. Integrated teams have the ability to work collaboratively with the emergence of a shared theoretical perspective; this process is able to advance interprofessional knowledge and practice by giving the professionals an opportunity of borrowing tools of another discipline. Views and perspectives of children, and reflect an understanding of the diversity of children Participation and involvement is still evolving hence a close working tie within the children’s service creates a context in which some organizations in the education sector find opportunities for learning from the sectors that do not have long history of children involvement. Children participation and involvement is able to assist children become politically aware and active, help carers, parents and service providers improve the available support for children, provide a platform for learning for the children and the demonstration of the capabilities of good citizenship, provide space for the children for articulating their needs and demonstrate their resources, keep the children safe since participation and protection are mutually reinforcing rights, construction of children’s self-reflective processes and identification construction at personal and collaborative levels, and it accords the children the right of respect and dignity as human beings that are equal. For instance, the Cardiff sure Start centre collaborated with the parents, children and the staff in an effort to design a new sensory room, the process involved visitation to other centres having sensory rooms by children. The adults were required to observe and record the reaction of the children as well as interpret the pictures and photographs that were taken by the children regarding the things they enjoyed during the visit. Interrelationship of theoretical perspectives and perspectives to work with children The model of participation used by Hart is beneficial during the identification of activities that involve non-participation, questions on the propensity of the participation to categorize participation hierarchy. An example is promotion of the view that participation at top rung level depends on the acceptable completion of interactions that have been described in the lower rungs (Funk et al. 2012). This is to say participation projects are able to work on their way up the ladder at one rung at a time rather than choosing another approach those suites the context in which participation is working. There is a context developed by Treseder which is context specific and non-hierarchical model that reflects on contents such as the school and children do not have to be in control hence they will not have to reach the rung similar to that of hart model. According to Treseder’s model, there are those children who often wish to participate at levels that reflect on their abilities, resources that are available and ambitions. The level of participation will depend on individual contexts and children will not be grouped homogeneously; other children will be involved with groups of individuals who share similar experiences and this is very important. With peer support, children are able to be encouraged to take responsibility for each other and participate actively in the development of positive relationships as well as the community wellbeing. Principles underlying a rights and participation approach to childhood issues For children and adults to be involved in participation activities, it is important for the experts to work in a way that will enable participation and ultimately affect change and improvement within the institution. The process will be assisted by practitioners and managers being aware of the benefits gained from participation in social care for the purpose of improving the lives of children and adults. Participative approach ensures the children and adults are able to work in a way that is important to them leading to improvement in knowledge, skills and satisfaction at the workplace. The key practice points considered for both children and adults is that having involvement of both children and adults from different age groups, disabled or from the minority ethnic group (Foley and Leverett 2008). Having a partnership framework between children and young adults was a strategy that Welsh Assembly Government developed for the purpose of organizing and improving children services. The main commitment was to listen to young adults and children and this results in participation at different levels. A Funky dragon website was created by the assembly of Children and young adults in Wales to enable children and young adults share various concerns with the government ministries. The government encourages every local authority to set up forum for children and young person’s that are aged eleven years and above. The schools in Welsh have their junior and secondary governing bodies establish school councils and the national government departments together with the parliament are responsible for introducing legislations capable of impacting on the lives of children. The government departments of England were issued with guidance on how they will be able to encourage participation of children; from the response of the national consultations, the government developed the 2003 Green paper Every Child Matter. According to Foley and Leverett (2008) it is relevant to children who are disabled or refugees that are in the looked after care system; at times, experiences such as poverty and disability affect children and it will require support and decision making that will involve the entire family or the community. Alternatively, there are those children that feel uncomfortable working in groups that have adults; despite the presence of perceived benefits in splitting the children into various subgroups that are based on experience. Many issues that affect children are common to them and it is inappropriate to focus on the problems that affect the children (Hew and Cheung 2011). A dialogue should exist between adults and children for the purpose of assertion on the kind of support and the position they would like to be involved in. this trend shifts from moment to moment and from one child to another as well as between the various tasks and projects. Projects that work effectively have different strengths and experiences brought by children and this provides different roles children fulfill based on their aptitudes, abilities and interests, and this should be promoted and valued in an equal manner. References Baran, E. and Correia, A., 2009. Student-led facilitation strategies in online discussions. Distance Education, 30(3), pp. 339-361. Foley, P. and Leverett, S. 2008. Connecting with children: developing working relationships. United Kingdom: The Policy Press. Funk, A., M.SC, Van Borek, N., MSCPPH, Taylor, Darlene, B.SCN., M.SC, Grewal, P., Tzemis, D., M.P.H. and Buxton, Jane A, MBBS,M.H.SC, F.R.C.P.C., 2012. Climbing the "Ladder of Participation": Engaging Experiential Youth in a Participatory Research Project. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 103(4), pp. 288-92. Hew, K.F. and Cheung, W.S., 2011. Higher-level knowledge construction in asynchronous online discussions: an analysis of group size, duration of online discussion, and student facilitation techniques. Instructional Science, 39(3), pp. 303-319. Habashi, J., Wright, L. and Hathcoat, J.D., 2012. Patterns of Human Development Indicators Across Constitutional Analysis of Children's Rights to Protection, Provision, and Participation. Social Indicators Research, 105(1), pp. 63-73. Rixon, A. 2008. Learning together (Chapter 5). United Kingdom: The Policy Press. Stanier, J., 2009. 'There is no end to a circle nor to what can be done within it.' Circle Time in the secondary history classroom. Teaching History, (135), pp. 39-45. Zaghlawan, H.Y. and Ostrosky, M.M., 2011. Circle Time: An Exploratory Study of Activities and Challenging Behavior in Head Start Classrooms. Early Childhood Education Journal, 38(6), pp. 439-448. Read More