A key aspect of good practice within any early years setting is to work in partnership with parents/carers. Working in effective partnership with parents/carers can enhance the quality of provision and improve the learning and developmental outcomes for children. Bridging the gap between a child’s home and an early year’s setting can help them feel more secure and valued. Furthermore, parents/carers know their child the best and can share important information with a setting, which can help practitioners plan effectively for their learning, which is based upon their individual needs, wants and interests.

This two-part series focuses on working in partnership with parents/carers, specifically on how to talk to them about SEND. Some children may come to an early year’s setting with identified SEND. However, for many, a setting is the first interaction with early years educational and care professionals, who are often the first people to identify potential SEND. It is the responsibility and role of an early years practitioner to highlight any potential SEND concerns and share their observations and next steps with a child’s parent/carer.

This first part of the series focuses on the importance of building relationships and highlights some key aspects of communicating effectively with parents/carers.

Building relationships

It is important to build relationships with every child and parent/carer in your early years setting as early as possible. Establishing and maintaining relationships with parents/carers, enables you to build a foundation of trust and respect. Additionally, you can learn important things about a parent/carer, such as their home life, views, values and beliefs, which may influence your approach when talking to them. For example, you may learn that a parent/carer needs to rush off to work in the morning after bringing their child to the setting and will not have the time to have a conversation with you. However, when they come to collect their child, they may have finished work and have more time to talk. Another parent may be shy and appear reluctant to talk, or even appear to be very abrupt towards you. There may be many reasons why this might happen, and it is important to spend time getting to know each parent/carer and find out any potential barriers that may be making them appear reluctant to talk to you. Some parents may have specific speech, language and communication needs, or they may use English as an additional language which could make it more challenging to speak or understand you. Therefore, getting to know parents/carers will enable you to identify any potential barriers that may impact how they communicate and prompt you to use other forms of communication to assist them. Taking the time to support parents/carers to feel comfortable and able to communicate with you will help to strengthen your relationships, making communication easier if you need to talk to them about any difficulties that their child is experiencing at any stage in the future.

Effective communication

As early years practitioners, you will be talking to parents/carers each time their child arrives and leaves the setting as part of the daily practice of sharing information about their day. This is often informal and ad hoc, however when you notice a delay in a child’s learning and development, which may indicate a potential SEND, you need to communicate this to their parent/carer. This can be a difficult conversation to initiate and often one that you need to prepare and plan for ahead of time. But there are a few key skills that you should try to consider when talking to parents/carers:

• Prepare parent/carers: Conversations about potential delays in a child’s learning and development can be a big conversation to have with parents/carers and should not be ad hoc. It is important to initially let them know that you would like to discuss their child’s learning and development with them and agree on a mutually convenient time. Where possible, arrange this to take place within the next few days, as parents/carers may feel anxious after you have asked to speak with them. I found within my own practice that a good time to have these conversations is during our regular parent/carers meetings as they are already aware that you are going to discuss how their child has been getting on. However, in some situations, conversations need to happen sooner rather than waiting for these opportunities, so use your judgement of when to speak to a parent/carer.

• Be clear: It is important to remember that you are talking to a parent/carer and not an early years professional, so try to keep your language simple and concise. Avoid using acronyms or complicated terminology as not all parents/carers will know what you mean and may not be confident enough to ask. For example, the acronym ‘EYFS’ which refers to the Early Years Foundation Stage or ‘SEND’ in reference to Special Educational Needs and/or disability.  If you do discuss ages and stages of development and assessment scales, make sure you explain clearly what they are and never assume a parent/carer knows or understands what they are. Be concise and explain to a parent/carer which areas of learning and development their child is having difficulties in and provide them with some clear examples/evidence from your observations and assessments.  

• Be sensitive and patient: Some parents/carers may share your concerns or have noticed certain behaviours at home as well, but have not had the confidence to speak to you about them. They may be more ‘on board’ with what you are telling them and want to know how they can work together with you to support their child. However, for other parents, this may come as a complete shock and be a lot for them to process and understand. They may be in denial and could be scared, which can come across as being angry that you are even suggesting that something could be ‘wrong’ with their child. It is important not to react if a parent is angry with you. Let them express their feelings and listen to them (I find a little bit of emotion coaching strategies can help here). If a parent/carer becomes physically aggressive or intimidating, end the meeting immediately and take yourself out of the situation to a safe space. However, where possible, try and end the meeting on a positive note and suggest that you revisit the conversation another time. For these parents/carers, it is important to be patient and give them time to process what you have said, even if they do not want to follow up on it, you have at least ‘planted the seed’. For some parents/carers, for many different reasons, they do not want any additional support for their child and are not open to any discussions surrounding this. All you can do in these situations is support the child within the setting as much as you can and gently and sensitively try to engage their parent/carer over time.

Summary

In the first part of this two-part article, we looked at the importance of establishing and maintaining relationships with parents/carers from the earliest possible point and highlighted some key aspects to consider when you are speaking to parents/carers. Part two of this article will focus on what you should discuss with parents/carers and the importance of creating time and space to have such discussions. We will additionally look at the role of working in partnership with other professionals to support a child’s learning and development further.