As Speech and Language Therapists working in Early Intervention, we know that children spend more time with their families or in a childcare setting than they do with us. In this blog post you’ll learn three tips for effective collaboration with staff in childcare settings.
Barriers to Effective Collaboration in Childcare Settings
A key part of early intervention is collaboration with caregivers and supporting carryover into the home environment. I bet you’re pretty good at collaborating with caregivers. But, it’s fair to say that coaching in childcare settings can be hard sometimes. They have multiple children to care for, and it can be hard to find time to liaise with them. It’s not just you who feels this way. Research by Weglarz-Ward, et al (2019) found that there are some barriers to effective collaboration with staff in childcare settings.
These barriers to effective collaboration include:
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- poor communication between childcare staff and therapists
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- unclear strategies
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- lack of carryover
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- lack of consistency.
However, it is possible to overcome these barriers and establish effective collaboration with childcare providers in childcare settings.
Three Tips for Supporting Effective Collaboration in Childcare Settings:
1) Provide suggestions that are related to the child’s specific routine to support effective collaboration in childcare settings.
Why this helps – Choosing activities and routines that already occur during the day in a childcare setting means that we are more likely to see carryover as we aren’t adding to their workload. We are suggesting activities which are familiar to the child and the setting staff, so it won’t feel too overwhelming to add a strategy or two when working with the child.
2) Choose strategies that can be applied to all (or multiple) children in the setting.
General language stimulation strategies are ideal in this situation, because they are beneficial for a wide range of children and can be easily implemented into a variety of routines and activities.
Why this helps – By encouraging staff to use strategies which can be applied to various children in the setting, we are more likely to see carryover because these strategies can support multiple children, as opposed to a more specific strategy which isn’t applicable to many children. It will feel more beneficial to the staff to be able to support multiple children at one time with the strategies.
3) Make time to talk to childcare staff at the end of your visit and provide them with clear ideas to support carryover.
Why this helps – Since we want to encourage carryover in the childcare setting between our visits, we need to make sure that the childcare staff understand the strategies and how and when to implement the strategies when we’re not there. One way you can do this is to schedule time with them at the end of the visit to pass on relevant information. You can give them the opportunity to ask questions, and clarify information before you leave. Another thing you can do is provide them with handouts that explain the strategy and how to implement them during the day.
However, the reality of working with childcare providers is that they don’t always have the time to meet with us at the end of our visits. One thing you can do instead is to arrange a time to call them after the session (telephone or video call), and pass the information on that way. This might include using emails, secure messaging apps, or calls to share updates or provide feedback outside of direct visits. This can be particularly helpful if finding time during the day is challenging. Sometimes staff have more flexibility in their schedule around naptime, so I try to arrange a call with them then. Being flexible in this way still gives you the opportunity to liaise with them, but at a time that may be more convenient for them, so they’ll be able to give you more attention.
My Favourite Resources for Encouraging Effective Collaboration in Childcare Settings
These evidence-based Early Intervention handouts for Childcare Settings have been designed to make it easier and more effective for you to collaborate with childcare providers and teachers.
These handouts outline how to use general language facilitation strategies in a range of activities applicable to childcare settings/classrooms. They are written in caregiver-friendly terms, so they can be easily understood by childcare providers and teachers.
This Early Intervention resource includes 12 setting-based handouts with ideas and tips for encouraging different early speech, language, and communication skills in childcare settings. Ideal for therapists working in preschools, daycare/nursery settings, or Early Childhood classrooms.
Both of these Early Intervention resources for childcare settings are available in a money-saving bundle too. Check the bundle out here.
I hope you’ve found these tips helpful. What have you tried that has been helpful when collaborating with childcare providers? Let me know in the comments!