Addressing maltreatment

Action Plan 3

Addressing Maltreatment—the Role of Early Childhood Professionals

As an early childhood professional you are a mandated reporter of neglect and abuse in the state you are employed. Many states have policies and procedures that early childhood professionals must follow if they suspect neglect or abuse happening. In my state of Maryland, early childhood professional who suspect maltreatment must follow the following policies and procedures. According to Maryland Abuse and Neglect laws only applies to a parent, any person who has permanent or temporary custody, household or family member, or responsible for supervision. All professional who work with children, need to know that to protect themselves they need to report any suspected maltreatment, because if they fail to report they can sanctioned by the licensing board. When a early childhood professional suspects maltreatment they must follow these following procedures.

• With in 48 hours of suspecting abuse, it must be reported both verbally and written to child protective services.
• Must have the following information when reporting the suspected behavior.
  • Names, ages, and addresses of all the family members where the abused child lives.
  • The present location of the maltreated child
  • any information on the maltreatment
  • who is being accused of this maltreatment

After you have reported the suspected abuse you need to support the needs of the children and non abusive family members. This is a difficult thing to do for many childhood professionals because they may not want to get involved anymore then they have to. One way you can support the family is to have information about community services, like counseling, and other services to help the child and family understand what is going on. Also educate the family of the victim of the wide range of emotions, behaviors, and how to cope with them. Another way is that you can be the positive, and emotionally stable person in their lives and hope they can trust you enough to express themselves to you. How could you show your support with out getting to involved with the family? As and educator you should keep your emotions in check and only supply the family with the information needed, but be supportive as much as possible. As the educator you spend most of the child's day with them and see if there may be change in their behavior and emotion, write all of this down and give the parent a copy so they know what maybe going on, and can tell the doctor, or counselors. The only thing that you can control is how your classroom is run, keep the child's daily routine as similar as possible, and reassure the child that everything will be ok and give lots of TLC.

How to present the information to the non-abusive parent in a supportive non-judgmental way? One way is to wait for them to approach you for the information, and when they do keep your opinions out of it, but be supportive emotionally. On the other hand, you can inform the parent of any change you may have noticed in their child, and maybe suggest things that you use in your classroom to help the child deal with their emotions, Like journal writing, creative arts, role playing, and open conversations. Another way to present the information to the non-abusive parent is maybe fliers or brochures with information about child development and how children deal with maltreatment, and community services that may be helpful sitting in the lobby for the parents to grab if they want too.

References

Maryland Department of Human Resources, (n.d) Reporting Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect, retrieved on February 2, 2014 from www.dhr.state.md.us

supporting children's need after a disaster

Action Plans for Early Childhood Educator To Help Support Their Students Needs

Every educator whether early childhood, elementary or secondary, needs the background knowledge on how to support the needs and emotions of every child who may walk into their lives. In this paper I am going to explore five possible scenarios that educators will confront sometime in their professional career, supporting the child's needs after a disaster, loss of a family member, maltreatment, divorce, and being an advocate for a family in your community. With each of the five action plan scenarios I will provide background information, and ideas and advice on how to support the child's needs.

Action Plan 1

Supporting A Child's Needs Following a Disaster

For my first action plan for early childhood educators to support a child's need and emotions in the case of some emotional distress, first I am going to look at the effects of a natural disaster. Many regions around the world are affected by weather related and natural disasters like hurricanes, tornado, typhoons, tsunamis, and earthquakes. Just this past year the mid west was hit with tornadoes that left many families with out a home, the loss of lives, and the stress of rebuilding even though it could happen again. For the gulf region of the united states, these type of weather related disasters happen often around the late summer and early fall months, during hurricane season. We all are trained on what to do in the case of a disaster, but how do we support the families and children in our care in the aftermath? What should educators know about the needs and emotions of the children, what do the experts say we should do to help support the children, and what problems could the children face in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

Scenario:

You are an early childhood educator working with young children in the gulf region who are still struggling with the effects of Hurricane Katrina. What essential information will you need to know in order to help support the children who are still struggling with the aftermath? What useful information can experts give you to help the families and children? What problems related to the aftermath of Katrina could effect the children's family life, routines, and sense of security? How can you help support the needs and emotions of the children in your care?

After a disaster like Hurricane Katrina, educators must know that many of the children in their care have been hit by this type of disaster in many different ways, loss of childhood home and belongings, parents loss of job security, malnutrition and basic needs not met, loss of family member, friend, and pets, seen violence, illnesses, and death, and may have been separated from family members. The affect from these traumatic experiences cause children to ask many difficult questions, show signs of depression, anxiety, and behavioral challenges. The outcome of many of the situations mentioned above could affect the child's daily life and sense of security, by starting a new school, and family life changes. With the children's emotions being a wreck, starting a new school could cause more stress for the child. Start at a new school, not knowing if you will be liked, if your old friends will be there can be stressful for a child who is already dealing with so much. Another problem that can affect a child's daily life after a traumatic experience, is the separation of the family unit. Do to the stresses of rebuilding, financially supporting the family, and living in closes quarters for a long period of time can have an affect on the family. Many adults struggle with keep a family together while trying to overcome this type of disaster that effects many different parts of our lives. What we as educators need to do is understand what the families are going through, and help as much as possible to keep the child's life as normal as possible.

The experts on the affects of disasters of children suggest that as educators, we must support the basic emotional and physical needs of the children affected, keep their daily routines the same as before the disaster, limit the amount of information that they may receive about the disaster, listen carefully to the children and reassure them, look for changes in them and yourself, be a role model on how to cope with the aftermath. The points that the experts tell us that we should do in the aftermath of a disaster like Hurricane Katrina, should be used on a daily basis. As educators we should be a role model, looking for behavioral changes, meeting the physical and emotional needs of every child in our care, if we do these things on a daily basis the children would not hopefully notice any change in their routines while in our care.

 As an educator of 15 plus years, I can say that I have only had a few incidents where I had to emotional and physically support the children in my care due to some traumatic experience, but nothing like the experiences that the children of the gulf coasts states have had to deal with in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. What I have come to learn is that I need to be a role model, and keep their daily routines the same no matter how difficult it may be. I need to be a good listener, and observer. I also need to be their friend and someone they can trust in this difficult time of their lives. Like I said it maybe difficult at times but i know that I have to be the rock, be the only constant, non-changing thing in that child's life.   

Supporting families with a loss

Action Plan 2

Supporting Young Children through a Family Loss

The second action plan for early childhood educators is to know how to support children, infant through school age, with a loss of a family member. Many of us have lost a close family member in our adult life, and it affects us just as it does for children. We all think that children are resilient and can bounce back from losing someone close to them, well they can, but during their grieving period we have to be emotional and physical supportive for them. Death and the grieving process can affect our body, mind, emotions, and spirit, through loss of appetite or sleep, happy and sad memories, worrying and regret, an emotional roller coaster, and question our faith, or renew our faith. If we think it is hard for us to cope with the death of a loved one, it must be worse for a child who may not understand what is happening around them. For this action plan I am going to explain what an educator should know about how children cope with losing a family member, what the experts tell us about how to support a grieving child, and what we can do as educator to support a grieving child.

Scenario:

You are working in an early childhood setting that cares for and teaches children ages 0–5. Two families in your program share a grandmother who has been an active and loving caregiver for their children—an infant, a toddler, and a preschooler. The grandmother has recently passed away and you want to support these families by helping them understand how infants, toddlers, and preschoolers grieve in order to help the children with this loss.

We all respond and grieve differently to the loss of a family member; some celebrate the life that was lived, others go into a depression, some verbalize their feeling, others write or draw about their feelings. Children are not exempt from the grieving process and depending on their age and development they may grieve differently then you and I. Educators should know how children at different developmental levels, and how each culture grieves with a loss. The experts in childhood development field, tell us that children from birth to school age grieve differently, listed below are some of the ways that children may understand and grieve with a loss.

Infants

Infants do know that some type of change is happening in their life, they may not know the details, but they sense the change. They can sense change in the caregiver’s emotions, which may affect how they grieve. With the inability to communicate verbally, Infant communicate to adults that they may be grieving the loss of someone by…

• Regressing or stop developing those fine and gross motor skills
• Loss of appetite, or choose a comfort food
• Change in personality or becoming more irritable
• Disruption in sleep pattern

As infant caregivers of who may have lost someone close to them is to keep their life as normal as possible. We need to keep our feelings about the loss to ourselves, and be as normal as possible around the child. They feed off our emotions, and react to them.

Toddlers

Similar to infants, toddlers grieve for the loss of someone close to them differently than we do, due to their lack of language, and communication skills. Toddlers are developmentally growing and learning to navigate the environment around them, let allow learning how to understand loss of something. Toddlers are beginning to use their verbal skills to communicate to the people around them but they may not have the vocabulary to tell us how they are feeling. Below are a few signs to look for in a grieving Toddler.

• Change in emotions
• Change in eating and sleeping habits
• Regression
• Attachment to a security blanket, binky, or stuffed toy

As an educator of toddlers who maybe grieving over a loss of someone close to them, we need to be there for them emotionally and physically. We need to work hard on keeping their daily schedule as normal as possible. We also need to keep our emotions about the loss to ourselves, just like infants, toddler’s sense change in us and react emotionally.

Preschool

As for preschoolers and older children, they grieve similarly to us. They have the understanding of loss and communication skill to verbalize their feelings. Like adults children do grieve in different ways. The experts say we should look for the following signs in grieving preschoolers.

• Regression
• Emotional roller coasters
• Tantrums and other unusual behaviors
• Separation anxiety
• Clinging to a security blanket or item
• Imaginary friend or family member who recently past.

As a caregiver of a preschooler who may have lost someone close to them, all we can do is the same thing we have done for the infant, toddler and anyone else who may have lost someone, be there for them. Be a friend and listen to them and be emotionally and physically supportive. Keep their schedule as normal as possible.

As for the children in the scenario, who had recently lost their grandmother, as their caregiver I would try to keep their day as normal as possible, and be there for them. I would be there for them emotionally and physically, it is a tough thing to go through at any age. For the Preschooler I would let him talk about what he is feeling and reassure him that everything will be OK. It would defiantly depend on the child on how I would handle this situation but with the knowledge of the grieving process and the signs to look for I will know what to do in the case of a child grieving over the loss of someone close to them.

References

TLC,(2008) The National Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children, Infant and Toddler Grief, retrieved on January 18, 2014 from www.tlcinst.org/toddlergreif

AACAP, (2013) Child and Greif, retrieved on January 18, 2014 from www.aacap.org/aacp/families_and_youth

Supporting Families with Divorce

Action Plan #4

Supporting Families with Divorce

When a young married couple feel that they are not able to love each other anymore, are in an unhealthy marriage, or have tried to work out their problems with counseling but it didn't change anything, the tendency is to go their separate way and get a divorce. This is a difficult time in these two peoples lives, now add children to the mix. If it is difficult for the married couple to handle how do you think children handle the situation of divorce, and the life they knew changing? Children feed off their parents, if the parents handle the situation calmly and not fight in front of the children, the children will handle the situation better, then a situation where there is a lot of negativity. In this action plan, I'm going to inform early childhood professionals how families are effected, and how to support the children, infant through preschool, and families through separation and divorce.

How Families are Effected by Divorce

When it comes to the young married couple planning to get divorced many things could be a factor, unfaithfulness, married to young and not prepared for the roles of a couple, abusive, untrustworthy, and to much arguing. As educators, and early childhood professionals we have to understand what could have caused the families of the young children that we care for to go through this difficult time in their lives, and separate. No matter the reason for the divorce, the outcomes of the children are always the same, difficult understanding why mommy or daddy are moving out, pain, guilt (it's my fault they are leaving?), and resentment. This time in anyone's life is stressful, and needs to be handled as stress free as possible in front of the children. I mentioned above that depending on how the parents react to the divorce, will depend on how the children react. A divorce with a lot of arguing and conflict will, make the children feel guilt, anger, and lonely. On the other hand, a divorce that is conflict free, a child will still feel anger and guilt, but will feel less alone because the two parents will work together to make the transition successful. As professionals, we need to know that the effects of divorces will not change overnight and may take up to five years to change the child's feelings and understanding of why his or her parents don't live with them all of the time.

Supporting the Children and Families

Nithyakala Karuppaswany and Judith Myers-Wells, Authors of Children's Reactions to Divorce, explain that children at different developmental stages and ages handle the stress of divorce differently. As early childhood professionals we have to understand who children at these different stages and ages handle the understanding of what is going on around them, so that we can support them correctly.

Supporting Infants with Divorce

The researchers say that even in the first years of a child's life, they are learning to read body language, emotions, who to trust, and form close relationships with. We may not always realize it, but infants do react to our emotions. Infants don't understand that their family is going through a divorce, but they do know that someone close to them is not always around. To support an infant child and his or her family in this difficult time is simple, as an educator or E.C. professional you keep their routine as normal as possible, remain calm while in their presents, always maintain a worm comfortable environment. When it comes to supporting the family, give suggestions when asked, and don't get to involved.

Supporting Toddlers with Divorce

Like with the infancy stage, Toddlers don't understand what and why their life is changing, they only know Mommy or Daddy is moving out. With toddlers you will notices signs of regression, problems sleeping, change in emotions, and anxiety when a parent is out of sight, which all could be signs of how they are dealing with the stress of the divorce. How can we as early childhood Professionals support a child and his or her family though divorce? While just like in the infancy stage, we need to keep the child's routine the same as much as possible, be reassuring , caring and patient, if possible spend some quality time with them one on one if possible. As an educator I know with the ratios it is kinda hard to spend one on one time with a child, but try to take time to sit read and make them feel special, and cared for.

Supporting Preschoolers with divorce

Preschool children are just starting to understand that one parent is not living in the same house as them, because of divorce or separation. Depending on how open the parents are about talking to them about the difficult changes that are going on in their lives. Just like with the toddlers parents and caregivers will start noticing change in the child's behaviors, like anger, guilt, emotional, acting out situations in home-living, and question what divorce is and why is this happening. As early childhood professionals we can support our preschool children through divorce by keeping their schedule and routines as much as possible the same, have them make presents for both parents, make the child feel he or she can trust you to talk about their feelings with, and just be patient and caring. As far as the family support goes, you don't want to get involved or pick sides, stay neutral, and give advice if asked for.

Divorce is a tough time for all parties involve, but as long as we are all working together to keep it as stress free, and their routines and schedules as normal as possible for the children, they will bounce back to a normal life with minimal effects. Our goal as early childhood professional is to keep our environment as safe, and comfortable as possible, while supporting positive behaviors.

References

Karuppaswany, N., and Myers-Wells, J (copyright 2006-2013) Children's Reactions to Divorce, retrieved on February 6, 2014 from www.extensions.purdue.edu/providerparent/

DeBord, K, (n.d) The Effects of Divorce on Children retrieved on February 6, 2014 from www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/fcs/pdfs/fcs471.pdf