Nursery World - Positive relationships: Key people - part 4

Those having responsibility as a key carer need to be honest with themselves about the emotional and personal demands of the role as they tune in to individual children, says Anne O'Connor.

'The key person should meet the needs of each child in their care and respond sensitively to their feelings, ideas and behaviour, talking to parents to make sure that the child is being cared for appropriately for each family.' (Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage, p37)

This is a fairly straightforward statement about the role of the key person - and it could be argued that this would be expected of anyone working with children.

However, what sets the key person approach apart from conventional 'serial care' (in which any number of adults may have responsibility for a child over the course of a day) is the very special nature of the close relationship that is promoted by key caring.

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