Kingston University is at the forefront in developing new courses and resources for professionals working with 0-19 year olds. The University is currently setting up an Institute for Child-centred Inteprofessional Practice (ICCIP) which will be a centre and academic base for professionals in early years, social work, youth justice, nursing and the police.
I am contributing to the ethical aspects of ICCIP’s development - for example, by taking part in seminars with professionals working with children from birth to 5 years as part of Kingston’s BA Hons Education and Childcare: for details contact www.kingston.ac.uk/education.
Students work in a range of settings with babies and children with different conditions and from varied background. Consequently they encounter vastly different problems. We look at scenarios arising in early years work and consider how the ethical framework set out in Working Ethics might suggest ways of dealing with them. Some points to emerge were:
- the importance of early years professionals being mindful and protective of the objectives of their work
- the value of making these objectives clear to parents so they can make informed decisions about the welfare of their children
- the need to protect the integrity of the role of early years professionals
- that it is ethically important to respect the autonomy of early years professionals as well as that of parents and other stakeholders: fairness requires respect for the informed views of everyone!
It was agreed that these points can help professionals arbitrate between conflicting demands and also help them decide when they should say no to some requests!
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