Qualification: NCFE CACHE Level 3 Diploma for the Early Years Educator
Unit: Unit 2.5: Work in partnership
Learning outcome: Understand the principles of partnership working in relation to current frameworks when working with children
Assessment criteria: Summarise policy and procedural requirements in relation to partnership working
As we explored in the previous section, the EYFS contains provisions for Early Years practitioners to work in partnership with parents, carers, and other professionals for the child’s best interests.
For partnership working to be effective, Early Years settings should have policies and procedures that govern how the collaboration will work.
This could include when and where meetings occur, the format of the meetings, and ground rules, such as respecting and valuing everyone’s contributions. In addition, the roles and responsibilities of each party will usually be set out as well as clear lines of reporting.
The most important policy and procedural requirements of partnership working will be confidentiality and information sharing.
Personal information about or child or family will usually only be shared on a need-to-know basis and with the consent of the child’s parents/carers. However, there are exceptions to this rule, for example, if a safeguarding concern needs to be reported to social services.
Parents and carers also have the right to see their child’s records, and all records must be stored securely. This is legislated for by the Data Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).