1.1 – explain the importance of providing accurate and up to date information and advice to children and young people 0/3
The importance of up to date and accurate information and advice to the young people we care for is crucial, more so for the young people we are catering for as their behavioural needs are of a demanding nature and they need clarity when asking questions, to be able to give clean consice answers and asking the young person to repeat what was said to clarify helps de-escalate situations, puts young peoples minds at ease and also promotes trust in that adult. If we provide information that has been superceeded then we are undermining ourselves, eg: “child A you cant go to the city on your own as you haven’t completed any form of independent trip and it wouldn’t be safe” and then finding out that it had been agreed that going into the city would be the first step for their planned independence but you haven’t been told due to lack of communication. This then has a huge impact on that relationship with that child.
They don’t feel that you care because you didn’t know about the plan, they think that your untrust worthy and change your mind. All of this can be avoided with being able to effectively communicate and provide to the young people up to date advice and information. The same priniciple applies when dealing with things like medical issues, some adults in the home may have some medical training but if they speak out of turn and try and diagnose or offer advice which is no longer relevant they they too could damage their relationship although having said that I have been quite negative the positives to providing up to date information and advice are the polar opposites, they help build firm relationships based on trust and acknowledgement of need and desire to help, belief in what you are saying and trying to do. The positives of providing up to date advice and information cannot be over looked in dealing with young people with behavioural difficulties and attachment disorders.
1.2 – explain the role of practitioners in providing impartial information and advice to children and young people 0/3
As a practioner in a young peoples care home I have a role of providing impartial adice to the young people, I can do this by offering support to them in making informed choices about areas that they are worried about or need more advice, I also have to look at whether they would be safe from explotation and explore this area with them, supporting them in preparation for employment; helping them create CV’s, running mock interviews for jobs, helping them wear appropriate dress and have good person hygiene. I as a practioner also need to make sure that I can send a young person the right direction or have them read the meterphoical sign posts that I give so that they can seeks upport for personal issues and relationship advice, through the use of our in house systemic therapists, the LAC nurse visits, legal aid and advocacy. As a carer in this role I need to support the young person in their own personal saftey.
2 – Establish and address the information and advice needs of children and young…
2.1 – encourage the participation of and engagement with children and young people to establish their information and advice needs 0/3
I currently am supporting a young girl in the care home to take an active role in establishing her information and need for advice, I am able to do this by providing her with details of professionals; Doctors, opticians, dentists and general health care professionals. I encourage her in making her appointments, keep an accurate record and use that information to inform others and make arrangements, this is most recently been on show as I wanted her to have her immunistations completely up to date. This involved a long conversation with her about what she has had and what she is missing, this then lead to a trip to the doctors to get a print out of what she needed and where she could organise getting them, we then sat together and made phone calls and arranged dates for her to have the update jabs, this was then passed onto the duty care manager in the house who would write it in the house diary.
This support and encouragement for getting things right shows that you have confidence in that young person and believe that they know what they are doing and you trust that. The encouragement for seeking advice comes to me within my working practice on a more personal level for the young people, I actively encourage and advise them to partake in restorative meetings when nessecary and to seek out the support and advice from our in house therapists. Currently the young person that I work closely with has refused to speak about seeing a therapist, even just for a general conversation and when the in house therapist is in she avoids them as much as possible even exiting a room as they enter.
On the opposite side though she has struggled with restorative meetings in the apst but now can understand the need for the process and actively welcomes it. We can also see that because of the investment in restorative practice that her behaviour has improved allowing her to fully involve herself in her educational studies, taking ownership of completing her BTEC food course and gaining certificates, seeking out for herself suitable work experience, taking active steps to create a better enviroment by working in the house garden and creating her own health and fitness rountines; going for walks in the morning.
2.2 – select information from appropriate sources that will best meet the needs of the young person 0/3
As carers in the house we have a responsibility to provide appropriate souces that will best meet the needs of our young people, we can do this by placing in the house college prospectus’ as this inspires a future and that we have placed certain colleges information around that we know that the young people can achieve this, we also can place information on their in house computers, CV builders, career planning software, connexions type websites on their bookmarks on the internet.
We also need to be inclusive in what we provide so that we have information that can be accessed by young people with physical or sensory needs, or different languages, these are tailored to those children specficially and left in places that those children tend to spend lots of time, this could be having a prostectus in brail for a young person who has a visual impairment. We as an organisation need to also have a selection of information avaliable for the young people that will meet their needs, we have a contacts folder sitting in the house that has numbers for our local police community support officers, dentists, opticians, local places for Saturday job poteintial etc. This set of information is taken to meetings with the care team and the managers meetings during the week and is updated to meet the specific needs of our young people
2.3 – verify the accuracy and currency of information before presenting it to the young person 0/3
We as carers need to make sure that the information that we provide is accurate and current, there is no point putting an information booklet about whats up and coming in our area when its two years out of date, as responsible adults all information that is avaliable to the young people needs to be accurate and current, this stops disappointment and the possibility of negatvie behaviours being presented due to not being able to do what they want. We can also see the need for accurate information when we are offering phone numbers for things like doctors, the need to provide the young people with accurate and current information about their savings in the bank, their trust fund at the house, their day to day activity money, clothing budgets and toiletries budget. We actively encourage the young people to take ownerhsip of these and encourage a regular meeting to discuss these so that the young person is kept as up to date as possible. This as they leave the care home comes more apparent as we woud look at what current benefits if any the young person would be entitled to and how they would claim those, providing accurate records of transactions, pay slips etc.
2.4 – explain approaches to managing situations when the child and young person’s choices are different to those of their carers 0/3
When approaching situations when the young persons choices are different to those of us as carers we need to be able to demonstrate good listening skills and encourage the young people in our care to give an explanation for their choices, supporting these if the explanation holds but also offering realistic and proprotianal alternatives when their explanation doesn’t make sense etc. We as responsible adults who value the input from the young people have to mediate between the two ideals from young person to carer and use this to come up with a defined plan. This will also lead to us as carers having to diffuse heated situations either between us and the young person or between the young person and a peer, these situations then provide a good basis for restorative meetings, which shows the young people their growth in negotiation and diplomacy. We as carers through the use of positive intrigue can almost sign post our young people to areas for relevant support and information to gain what they need for what they are aiming for.