Age-Appropriate Childcare Approaches

Explain why it is important to take a balanced approach to risk management

Balanced approaches need to be taken for children as per their age, needs and abilities. Based on the guidelines of EYFS, infant (0-1 years) needs 24 hours care and support from their parents as well as of practitioner in order to protect them from any kind of accidents, injuries and health risk (Nerenberg et al. 2018). Parent needs to highly concern about their health and wellbeing of these infants. In this aspect, practitioner would conduct regular check of the infants in order to ensure that they are fre from all health risk.

In case of toddlers (2- 3 years), practitioners need to assist children to deal with different things in their surrounding environment rather than keeping them away from these things. Through this process, toddlers understand the shape, colour and size of different things surrounding them (Saile et al. 2016). Moreover, practitioner will supervise activities and behaviour of these toddlers in order to assist the, in proper manner to improve their brain function, cognitive ability ad the metal strength. For example, the practitioners would assist the toddlers to jump or run through playground with assisting the, that they would not fall and get injured. Children within age group 3-5 years are eager to learn new things and skill. Practitioner need to support their interest by motivating eth children to deal with surrounding things. Moreover, parent will also assist the children to understand the different things in their surrounding world in order to improve their mental and physical strength. Children with age group 6-10 years are able to take proper risk management approaches in order to protect themselves (Tepanosyan et al. 2017). In this stage, they need proper support and encouragement from their parents and practitioners meet their basic needs, at this stage children are highly enthusiastic and egoistic. They need proper guidance and care from parent and practitioner which will assists them to understand what rights and what are wrong around them. Based on the EYFS guidelines it can be sated that practitioners need to be well-trained in order to understand needs of children as per their age in order to assure the proper risk management process in terms of protecting them from hazard and risk.

As stated by Nerenberg et al. (2018), in early year setting, practitioners need to take balances risk assessment approach in order to assist the children and adults to learn through the errors and failures. Only the risk management process in children learning process is not enough as it is associated only with restricting and protecting children from any kind challenging activities, rather assisting them to deal with challenges. The balanced risk management approach is important for children and adults in order to improve their understanding and cognitive ability which they can gain through mistakes. Such as practitioners do not resist children from jumping or running through the ground, rather they need to assist them to run or jump properly without having en tendency of falling. Moreover, through balanced risk management approach, the practitioner can assist the children and adults to understand about things that are dangerous to their health and wellbeing such as poisonous chemicals, broken toys, soil and slippery ground. Through providing understanding about these things practitioners can manage and protect children from being injured or hurt. Therefore, it can be stated that a balanced risk management approach is important for children and adults in order to improve their understanding and cognitive ability that they can gain through dealing with challenging things.

Explain the principles of safe supervision in the home-based setting and off-site

The practitioner needs to supervise the activities behaviour and the attitude of children both in and out of their home to protect them from any kind of hazard or harm (Tepanosyan et al. 2017). There are different types of supervision which practitioners use in as well as outside homes in order to make a safe and secure environment for each child.

Constant Supervision:

In this process, practitioners remain in close contact with children and supervise their activities and behaviour all the time. For example,

Checking the arrival and departure of children]

Taking the child from school, preschool and playground

Taking with children at snack or meal time

Watching the behaviour and activities of children during their sleeping time

Watching activities during play with peers

Watching their cooking experience.

Through making clear supervision on their activities, practitioners can understand and analyser the behaviour and activities of children (Saile et al. 2016). In his process, it is possible for the practitioners to understand any behavioural transition or adverse changes in the attitude of the children. Through conducting the close supervision, the practitioner also can make a strong relationship with children who assist them to know about the different experience of children they gather at home as well as outside the home such as in school and playground.

Treating children as individuals:

Based on the guidelines of EYFS, practitioners as well as parent need to treat each child as an individual in order to access his or her needs and preference. In order to make safe supervision on children at home as well as at the offsite, practitioner needs to understand the preference, problems, activities and behaviour of children (Chaffee et al. 2016.). Through treating children as an individual it will be easy for practitioner to supervise behaviour ad activities of the child at home as well as at the outside environment such as in schools, playground and in the ore schools. Practitioner can also understand whether the child deals with any hazards or abuse in his or her personal life which poses important impact on his or her professional life. Moreover, through treating children as individual, practitioner can build string relations with the children which will assist them to work in partnership with these children and promote the safe supervision on their activities at home as well as at outside.

Recognising individual abilities and needs:

During supervision process practitioner can observe as well as understand the development and leaning process of the child (Lewanda et al. 2016). Safe supervision assists practitioners to evaluate proper planning and process of the overall mental and physical growth of each child. In addition to this, practitioners are able to recognise strengths and weakness of each child which is important for promoting their professional and personal development. Based on the guidelines of EYFS, practitioners need to promote the positive sense of understanding of things inside the children and adults in order to develop their positive decision-making ability and problem-solving skill. For promoting additional support to the children, practitioner need to focus on their individual needs and abilities which assist the practitioner to evaluate the actual needs, preference and interest of these children.

Risk assessment and home safety:

For promoting risk assessment and home safety for children as well as adults, practitioners need to supervise the activities and behaviour of children and adults at their home as well as at the outside (Majeed et al. 2018). Practitioners would keep eyes on the activities of children for 24 hours in order to ensure that children are free from any risk such as sudden accident or injuries. Moreover, practitioners will focus on activities of children and adults in schools, playground and in eth schools’ premises. Practitioner needs to focus on the fact that any behavioural changes and transition of mentality have been observed into children. If child shows any behavioural transition, that means the child has passed through some abnormal experience which can pose potential impact on his or her mental and physical condition. Moreover, practitioners need to interact with parents at home and teachers at school, in order to have proper information regarding activities and behaviour of children for the entire day.

Close supervision:

Close supervision is the process in which practitioner supervises the activities and behaviour of children in most of the times, but they are not involved in the children’s activities (Tepanosyan et al. 2017). For example, in the case of children climbing on the stairs or chair, the practitioner encourages them to do this activity in a proper manner but they themselves do not involve in these activities. If there is any chance of injuries or accidents practitioners immediately have to provide proper support and safe setting to the children in order to protect them from hazards. Another suitable example for his type of supervision is children walk through or run on eh play found. In this activity practitioners are not involved in this process, rather their support children involved in his process in a safe manner, if children are going to fall, practitioners provide the proper support to protect them, from any possible injuries.

General supervision:

In this type of supervision, the practitioners keep an attentive eye on children’s activities and behaviour and protect them from any kind of harm and injuries (Chaffee et al. 2016). This process assists practitioners in checks the activities and behaviour of children without allowing them to know this. Therefore in this process, it is possible that practitioners can watch the overall behavioural transition of children, with analysing their activities. For example, practitioners watch children’s behaviour and acuities while they are sleeping or playing on the carpet. By applying three above-mentioned principles of supervision, the practitioner can protect children from any kind of harm hazards. The practitioner needs to assists children during the supervision process to do their activities in a proper manner. This process will allow the practitioner to understand the psychology and behaviour of children. Through the close and constant supervision process, practitioners can spend all their time with children, which assist them to understand the behavioural transition, attitude and cognitive ability of children.

Describe the procedure of:

Storage of medication:

Based on the guidelines of Managing Medicines in Schools and Early Years settings, the manager will ensure all the childcare staffs and practitioners have knowledge about storing medicines in the secure and hygienic manner (Nerenberg et al. 2018). Based on the guidelines, it is obligatory for all practitioner as well as childcare staffs to be well-trained in storing medicines for promoting health and wellbeing of children. Two types of medication storage process are used by the practitioner in order to promote the health and well-being of children as well as adults.

General storage:

All important and prescribed medicines for children should be kept in a secured and safe lockable cupboard with double locking system. As each child has his or her own health requirement, therefore, there will be a different section in which specific medication for each child needs to keep in a secure manner (Tepanosyan et al. 2017).

Controlled medication needs to be kept in a separate manner from the non-prescribed and prescribed medicines.

Medicines for children always will be kept in the Nest room in a marked box, in which each medicine is properly labelled.

Cold storage:

Medicine that needs to be kept in cold storage should be stored within separate and lockable refrigerator.

Practitioners need to check the temperature of the fridge twice a day and ensure that the temperature must be within 2-80 C.

The refrigerator in which the medicines are kept needs to defrost regularly.

Practitioners need to check properly that whether the medicines need to refrigerate or not, otherwise it will be harmful to use the medicines after refrigeration.

In refrigeration, the medicine needs to store in a hygienic and clean environment in order to ensure the usefulness of each child.

Medication administration:

In the case of medication administration, the well-trained key person is held to administer the medicines as per need as well as on a regular basis.

Key persons need to check the manufacturing and expiry date of each medicine and they should return the out-of-date medicines to the parents.

Parent need to provide their prior written consent to the manager for the administration of medicines on the Medicine Consent Form.

Based on the Managing Medicines in Schools and Early Years settings, no medicines will be given without the following details:

Dat5e of birth and the full name of the child

Name of each medicine

Strength of each medicine

Name of the doctor who recommends the medicines

Dosage of each medicine

Any possible harmful or side effects of these medications

Administration of medication is process of executing, handling and delivering appropriate medicines in proper manner in order to promote health and wellbeing of children in early year setting.

Administration of prescribing medicines:

Pharmacist would administer only prescribed medicines that ae recommended by doctors and health professionals (Neisi et al. 2016).

All the prescribed medicine is provided to senior nurse for preserving and storing them in fridge or cupboard in proper manner

Pharmacist will instruct and check that after delivering medicines to hospitals and nurse, they do not keep medicines in the kitchen, where children can easily access them

Medicine are provided to the children as per their body’s need. The duration of giving each medicine would be based on the doctor’s prescription

If any medicines are thrown up and it is found out, then it should be rejected for reuse. Hospital staffs and nurse will inform about these thrown up medicines to the pharmacist to take the medicines and use it in proper recycling process.

Keeping records of medication:

The overall administration of mediums would be recorded as per the guidelines of Managing Medicines in Schools and Early Years settings (Nerenberg et al. 2018).

Health care staffs and child care practitioners would be well-trained in order to record the medicines, their storage and administration in a proper manner.

The administration of Controlled Drugs (CDs) would be recorded in both the CD record book and Medicine Administration Record Charts (MAR)

All these records will be kept in numbered pages of bound books

Key persons would use a separate page for each medicine for each child

Key persons need to check and record of strength, dates and labelling of each medicine

Risk assessment in own home:

 The risk/ how it can cause harm

During teh early years, children are exposed to different kind of risk or hazards such as physical hazards, emotional hazards, psychological hazards and accidental hazards (Saile et al. 2016). All these risks can cause harm to both physical and mental health of children. For example, accidents during jumping, running and playing will cause cuts and injuries on children’s body. On the other hand, emotional and psychological stress that are posed on children during their early years by society and parents will cause anxiety, depression, low self-confidence and poor speech ability. on the other hand, children can also be exposed to different social hazards such as abuse, discrimination and bias, which affect adversely their mental status.

 How you are going to prevent the risk

In order to prevent these risks, practitioner needs to assist children to be trained in proper manner in order to deal with these hazards. Practitioners will not keep children away from external environment and outside activities for protecting them from harms, rather they need to make proper watch in each activities of children to guide them how to prepare for each challenges. Practitioner needs to watch all activities od child and if there are any abnormalities in the behaviour or activities, the practitioner will inform the parents. Adults and children always learn through new things as well as new ways. They grow up in a world full of dangerous things and hazards (Neisi et al. 2016). It is not right to keep them away from different things on their surrounding as it can pose an adverse impact on developing their understating ad knowledge. Therefore, the practitioner always needs to take a balanced approach towards risk assessment process, in which children can learn new things through touching and observing different objects. This balanced approach assist children and adults to learn new things without facing any issues or accidents for example, children learn how to climb on stairs or chairs, in this aspect the practitioner needs to assist children to do this activity with a safe and secure manner rather than restricting hem o do so due to the risk of accidents

Indoors:

In case of maintaining proper risk assessment process at my own home, I would like to implement the important health and safety policies based on the Early Year Foundation Setting (EYFS).

In terms of carrying out indoor risk assessment process, I will ensure safety for children in each room and place at the home such as stairs, windows, bathroom, kitchen area and lawn.

I would ensure that carpets are in good condition in stairs in terms of protecting children from being fall from this area. Moreover, I assist children with how to use stairs in a safe manner

In the kitchen, I would keep all electric appliances such as toasters, fridge, freezer, hobs, oven, microwave, electric kettle and heater away from children's reach. I need to ensure that there are no broken parts of kitchen appliances that can hurt children

In the living room, children generally spend most of their time playing with parents. I would ensure that the living rooms are clear and all the furniture as well as eclectic appliances such as TV, radio are arranged in good condition. I would make sure that child will not get hurt by any breakable or trailed part of TV, lamp, sofa and chairs.

I also ensure that children will be protected from being slipped while using the toilet. I would also ensure that the toilet floor is not sleeper and wet. All the things such as hot water, deep water in the bathtub, toiletries would be arranged in such a manner that will ensure the safety of children

Outdoors

I would maintain the safety of children in the playground, school and preschool area.

In the playground, children would be assisted to use the climbing equipment, in order to protect them, from any kind of injuries and harm

I keep my eyes on children while they are playing, running and jumping in the playground inside and outside the school.

I also ensure that children would not be exposed to sunlight for more than the limited period as it can make their body dehydrated. In order to avoid this risk, I use to provide umbrella and hats during the day out of children

In the garden, I use to maintain the general safety for the children such as checking gates and fences of the Garden, ensuring that the garden is free from any sand area, stony path or broken things.

Summarise ways to maintain a safe and healthy environment for children in relation to:

Preparing formula feeds

In terms of preparing formula milk for babies and toddlers in a safe and hygienic manner, the practitioners need to follow the following process

Practitioners need to check the expiry date on the formula container. if the expired date is already passed then they need to change this contained with new formula bottle (Tepanosyan et al. 2017)

Practitioners need to wash their hand in a proper manner before preparing the formula

Practitioners need to then sterilise the bottle, cap, nipple and rings. They need to boil all the accessories of the bottle as well as the bottle itself in water for at least five minutes

Then practitioners need to use clean and boiled water into the bottle and then mix the milk powder into it for making the formula feeding

Sterilisation of feeding equipment:

For sterilising the feeding equipment, it is important to first place the clean bottles, caps, utensils and he eats into a large saucepan with boiled water on the oven.

Then boil the ware for 5 mins and then take the bottles, caps and teats.

Then place the feeding equipment in a dry and clean place in order to allow them to be dried.

Preparation and storage of food:

For the preparation of food, the first practitioner needs to wash her hand as well as feeding equipment in the proper manner.

Then pour the raw milk into the bottle and then mix it with boiled water

Then shake the bottle in a proper manner to mix the milk powder with the water in a proper manner.

For storing the food, practitioner and parent would never place the prepared food in room temperature in more than 2 hours.

They need to keep the food in a clean and dry place

The food can be stored in the refrigerator, but not more than 3 hours.

Safe disposal of waste:

The waste product after preparing food would be placed in the dustbin.

Practitioners and parent would ensure that the dustbin is away from the reach of children

All the packets, wastewater and the best part, need to places in a bag, which is then needed to be placed into a dust bin

Care of pet:

During preparation of foods and sterilization of feeding equipments, the practitioner needs to ensure that there are no pets near the area. If fur of pets mixes with food, it can cause severe food poison and infection in children. Therefore, practitioners need to be careful to avoid the entry of pets during the process of food preparation.

Explain procedures to follow in the event of:

Accidents

In order to protect children from accidents and sudden injuries, the practitioner needs to place their eyes on children activities (Tepanosyan et al. 2017). They need to make proper interaction with the parent in order to gain information about the current health condition of children. Moreover, through assisting children during their playing, running and walking process, practitioners can avoid sudden accidents. Moreover, by protecting children from being hurt by any appliances in the home and outside the home, the practitioners can protect children.

Incidents

Through setting a strategy to watch and notice children’s activities in a proper manner, the practitioner can avoid chances of incidences.

Emergencies

In an emergency situation, such as sudden injuries, accidents, the practitioner needs to immediately inform the children’s parents (Nerenberg et al. (2018). Moreover, they need to call a doctor immediately for faster treatment. In the case of the incidence of abuse and humiliation, the practitioner needs to inform the childcare authority in locality and nearby police station in order to mitigate.

Reference list:

Cao, S., Duan, X., Zhao, X., Wang, B., Ma, J., Fan, D., Sun, C., He, B., Wei, F. and Jiang, G., 2015. Health risk assessment of various metal (loid) s via multiple exposure pathways on children living near a typical lead-acid battery plant, China. Environmental pollution, 200, pp.16-23.

Chaffee, B.W., Featherstone, J.D., Gansky, S.A., Cheng, J. and Zhan, L., 2016. Caries risk assessment item importance: risk designation and caries status in children under age 6. JDR Clinical & Translational Research, 1(2), pp.131-142.

Lewanda, A.F., Matisoff, A., Revenis, M., Harahsheh, A., Futterman, C., Nino, G., Greenberg, J., Myseros, J.S., Rosenbaum, K.N. and Summar, M., 2016. Preoperative evaluation and comprehensive risk assessment for children with D own syndrome. Pediatric Anesthesia, 26(4), pp.356-362.

Nasr, V.G., DiNardo, J.A. and Faraoni, D., 2017. Development of a pediatric risk assessment score to predict perioperative mortality in children undergoing noncardiac surgery. Anesthesia & Analgesia, 124(5), pp.1514-1519.

Nerenberg, K.A., Zarnke, K.B., Leung, A.A., Dasgupta, K., Butalia, S., McBrien, K., Harris, K.C., Nakhla, M., Cloutier, L., Gelfer, M. and Lamarre-Cliche, M., 2018. Hypertension Canada’s 2018 guidelines for diagnosis, risk assessment, prevention, and treatment of hypertension in adults and children. Canadian Journal of Cardiology, 34(5), pp.506-525.

Tepanosyan, G., Maghakyan, N., Sahakian, L. and Saghatelyan, A., 2017. Heavy metals pollution levels and children health risk assessment of Yerevan kindergartens soils. Ecotoxicology and environmental safety, 142, pp.257-265.

Villa, J.K.D., e Silva, A.R., Santos, T.S.S., Ribeiro, A.Q. and da Rocha Sant'Ana, L.F., 2015. Metabolic syndrome risk assessment in children: use of a single score. Revista Paulista de Pediatria (English Edition), 33(2), pp.187-193.