Teamwork and Children’s Services – Psychology Essay
Working in children’s services requires teamwork and it is very important to understand how to manage early childhood services and work with other staff members as a team. The staff of the service have to work together to understand everything that happens in a centre and how they can use this information to make the service even better in the future. To establish an effective and efficient early childhood team a lot of planning is required that involves all of the staff members. In addition, a motivating leader would be needed to show the staff the way towards the future.
Each staff member has to work in collaboration with each other to solve problems, come up with ways to make the centre of higher quality and appealing to the parents. As Ebbeck and Waniganayake (2003,p.195) point out ‘shared decision making is one secret of successful management’. A team also has to come up with ways to maximize their time and resources. A team can be described as a group of people that share a common goal and will work together to achieve it. These people will be of different backgrounds and will have different skills and abilities and also have great communication skills. Ebbeck and Waniganayake(2003, p.197) support this by saying ‘A vital part of any centre’s functioning is the communication that occurs among staff….’ If there is lack of teamwork it can lead to a stressful workplace, a poor quality childcare and higher turn over rate and as a result, the parents and children that are associated with the center will suffer. So teams need to communicate regularly with each other, be willing and be flexible.
When selecting people for jobs in early childhood, you have to keep a few questions in mind like : How many children are attending the centre? What kind of qualifications does the centre need? Every centre and its staff will have a common philosophy of the children’s development and the best ways that they can enhance it. But each staff member might have different values and attitudes and will bring that towards caring for children. Staff should talk to each other about what their weaknesses and strengths are so that they can find a way to overcome them or get better. For example – a staff member might not be good at taking music group times but is good at language group times, so other staff members can help that member get better at music group times. After all no one is perfect and the team will work better when they know what their weaknesses are and how they can change. If the staff are lacking in an area that relates to the children, then training should be provided for the staff to get better. People that have positive attitude and support other staff members will work better in a children’s service than a person with a negative attitude who never wants to communicate. When a problem arises, staff members should get together and discuss it and possibly resolve it because the longer you leave it, the worse it might get. Also once in a week, get the staff to write down any major issues that happened with the children during the week. For example if a child asked the staff a question that they didn’t know how to answer then that staff member should go and find out the answer for next time. You could also play a game every month where each staff member writes down a positive aspect that they like about each of the staff members. For example – Samantha is very good at conducting music group times and has a bubbly personality. This will boost every staff members self esteem and make them feel good. When staff have a good relationship it will show and this will in turn impact on children and how they act towards other children. Each staff member should make a long and short term goals that they want to achieve and they should monitor it too see if they are getting closer to achieving it or need help After all, early childhood services are there for the best interests of children and Research indicates that children who attend a high quality child care are less likely to have problems in school later on. When the centre is run smoothly everything else will flow smoothly as well. To put it briefly, Quality staff is they key to the smooth running of any early childhood service.
References:
Community childcare co-operative NSW (2005 student edition) Managing a child care service. Sydney: CCC Ltd (NSW)
Ebbeck, M. and Waniganayake, M. (2003). Early childhood Professionals, Leading today and tomorrow. Sydney: Maclennan and Petty
Light, H.R. (1968) The nature of management. Nairobi : Kenya
Oberhumer, P. (1999) Conceptualizing the professional role in early childhoods centres: Emerging profiles in four European countries.
Samson, D. and Daft, R.L. (2000) fundamentals of management. Dryden press. Orlando :Florida