1. Working with Parents What can help or hinder effective engagement between parents and Early Years practitioners?

2. 3 models of helping Partnership Expert Befriending

3. Group Activity Sort the sentences into the three models: Partnership Expert Befriending Can you think of more examples for when each model would be the best to use?

4. What skills do we need? Active listening. Prompting and exploration. Empathetic responding and summarising. Assessing the limits of competence and involvement. Purpose stating. Identifying the main message. Enabling change. Negotiating. Problem solving.

5. So that we can: Work closely together with active participation and involvement Share decision making power Recognise and use complementary expertise Agree aims and processes Have mutual trust and respect Be open and honest Have clear communication Understand one another and be flexible as things change Negotiate

6. If you want to read more… How Helping Works Towards a shared model of process October 2006 Parentline Plus, One Plus One & The Centre for Parent and Child Support ISBN: 1-873309-29-5

7. Barriers to engagement Role of the agency Our own attitudes and limitations Parents’ past experiences and personality Diversity Disability Language Difficulties Limited Resources Environmental Distractions Internal Distractions

8. Group Activity – Can we find solutions? What can we do to reduce or remove some of the barriers to effective partnership working?

9. And finally… Identify one change that you intend to make that could improve how effectively you work with parents. It could be an action, a change in your thinking, a change in the setting etc… Tell a partner.