The manager from Little Steps Nursery in St Albans spent 90 minutes a night for a week on a multi-agency training course from AC Education (www.ac-education.co.uk).
She says, ‘I chose the training because we have more children with exceptional needs. We’ll be working with a number of other agencies to support them and it was a question of ensuring I had the skills to do it.
‘I chose it partly for convenience – it’s hard to get out of the nursery and I’m also on a leadership course.’
She also plans to revisit the training with her staff. ‘You can sit down and discuss it with them and, if they don’t understand it you can revisit bits as many times as you want.’
It covers effective communication in some detail, with slides of text with ‘more information’ buttons, case studies, videos and various scenarios asking ‘What would you do if?’.
Ms Buchanan-Brown credits the course with helping her get local authority ‘exceptional needs funding’ for three children. ‘It has meant I have been able to articulate the needs of the children better. I was able to discuss with them in detail this child’s needs.
‘I’m more aware of the support I can get from agencies. One example has been a little girl who is visually impaired who has help from a “habilitation” specialist through the council. She helps show the key person what to look out for and the impact of various situations on the child.’
Partnerships with parents have also improved. She says, ‘It means you can say “We have noticed this, how would you feel if we accessed this support?”’
The communication aspect has also made her think about the communication skills of younger members of staff. Ms Buchanan-Brown says, ‘There was a particular member of staff who was very positive and enthusiastic about a particular child, but this meant she was overcompensating for the child. In fact she was saying the child was capable of doing things that she wasn’t.
‘Sometimes [younger members of staff] know what they want to say but don’t always have the life experience to be able to phrase things well. It has made me think a lot more about how to clearly communicate with my team.’
