by Lesley Tait, Amy Simpson & Kim Gairns
On Wednesday the 26th of March FCSS celebrated its 5th Birthday in the Scottish Parliament Building. Some of the team were lucky enough to get a wee visit into the chamber and sat on some certain seats…..important seats for important people which we have since found out that we possibly maybe should not have! Whoops, we did it again! (We did get some great photographs though!)
Being in the chambers got us thinking, ‘What would we do if we were the First Minister for a day?’ What would we change for our sector?
Kim Gairns, our ASN Co-ordinator, Amy Simpson our ELC Co-ordinator and I got together, and this is what we would change:
Kim says that she would change funding for children and young people with ASN.
Kim, our previous Service Manager at NESCol nursery, hears more and more that children who require more support are coming into services that might not have previous experience or perhaps the resources to provide the focussed support that they need to thrive.
Unfortunately, due to lack of funding, many childcare settings are unable to provide this extra support and this is having a negative impact, not only for the child and young person, but for their families who are subsequently not accessing the services they need to work, study or even gain respite. This also adds on extra pressure onto the team members who are already working in a highly pressurised environment. At FCSS we are blessed with a highly dynamic and versatile team who have access to numerous training resources and peer support from practitioners who have dedicated themselves to support children with ASN. Unfortunately, this is not the case in many childcare settings in Scotland.
Amy, our Service Manager at Cummings Park and new ELC Coordinator, would like to change how the the funding from Local Authorities is distributed so that the whole sector, including third sector and private providers, are on a level playing field.
By making sure that everyone receives consistent and equal funding we can ensure equality throughout the sector for example, we can ensure that Childcare Practitioners are being paid fairly, recognising the crucial work they achieve in preparing our children for the next step in their education journey. This would also give all services the opportunity to provide more opportunities to children and young people and of an even higher standard, due to the implications of team training, resources which would support the children’s development and learning experiences.
I would like for Local Authorities to be consistent in their approach to funded providers. I work with many different Local Authorities and they all work very differently and have very different expectations. This means that some services are having to work harder to achieve funded partnership, while others are not. This can have a detrimental affect on some providers who don’t have time to concentrate on Quality Assurance as they are too busy completing documentation for the Local Authority.
As a team if we were First Minister, we would like to make sure that every child and young person receives an Outdoor Play Box (a wee bit like the baby box that new parents and children receive at birth).
The Play Strategy for Scotland is for all children and young people to enjoy high quality play opportunities, and this should be supported with the right clothes to play outside. As Alfred Wainwright says, “There is no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothing.”
Not every family can afford the right clothing, and as the benefits of being outside has such a positive outcome for children an Outdoor Play Box would support families to be able to achieve this goal.
If I was First Minister….. has opened up so many questions that we have just started our wish list! If you support our asks (and would like us to be the next First Minister [eek!]) or have asks of your own, we’d love to hear them!
