Northern Grid for Learning - School Broadband, eSafety, Learning Resources and More

North Tyneside LSCB Childminder Network

September 13 2011

Working with children has many rewards and also presents a range of safeguarding challenges.

An interesting area of my esafety and safeguarding work involves supporting childminders, and the challenges they face are much more complex than we may at first expect.

Childminders work at home and the benefits of this are clear, yet the blurring of work and personal boundaries can lead to problems. We may occasionally be more flexible in our understanding of ‘acceptable’ in our own home than perhaps if we were working in an open plan office or alongside colleagues all day.

The group of childminders I met, in the evening, this week had a huge range of experience, and one childminder had almost 30 years’ experience in working with young children. If we consider the changes in technology over the last 30 years we can begin to imagine how the risks to both the children and the childminder have increased at a seemingly alarming rate. A childminder must ensure that they have the confidence and skills to manage the risks facing children who use common internet technologies including games consoles, phones and computers.

In addition to the challenges of working at home and the lack of day to day contact with colleagues who could provide important support and advice, childminders also face the challenge of informal relationships with their clients or customers. Where other self-employed people will have clearly defined parameters to relationships with their clients, childminders may have close friendships with the parents of the children in their care. We discussed this during the session and where the childminder and the parent of the children share a mutual trust and understanding then friendships and working relationships can be managed very effectively. This may mean the general guidance we offer in managing Facebook privacy settings is often much harder for childminders, and those who work at home, to put into effect. Unfortunately this can lead to potential areas of difficulty if parents of children express a view on the childminder’s suitability based on pictures and information they have viewed on the childminder’s Facebook page.

It’s clear that this is an area where further training and support would be welcomed by the members of the North Tyneside Children Come First Network. Bespoke training and support is available  for the network and Northern Grid is able to contribute to the training programme at a time that is convenient for the childminders.

It is by delivering training and support for all areas of the Local Authority that Northern Grid can support North Tyneside local authority to ensure that all children, young people and employees are able to embrace communication technology safely,wherever they are.

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