Working with Parents, Carers and Families in the Early Years: The Essential Guide

Parents have a crucial role in supporting children’s learning, development and wellbeing. Forming effective partnerships with families and carers is a key feature of the Early Years Foundation Stage. Achieving this takes time, reflective practice, skill and a solid understanding of the barriers that can impede forming effective working relationships with parents.

Working with Parents, Carers and Families in the Early Years offers an informed and comprehensive framework for working with parents, drawing on the latest evidence and containing practical advice from practitioners and parents, to support sound partnership practice. This second edition has been fully updated to reflect the current economic and social challenges facing families and the increasing diversity of family structures.

Full of examples and activities for training to support practice across a wide range of settings, it focuses on key areas such as:

• Working with parents of different aged children
• The development of strategies to support the relationship
• The barriers to partnership working, including sector challenges, social and cultural changes and time poverty
• Creating parent-friendly environments
• Reflecting on the events of the COVID-19 lockdown and the impact on partnership with parents
• Working with diverse families

Including case studies and questions for reflective practice, this book will be ideal for early years students on Foundation Degrees, Childhood Studies courses and those training to become early years teachers as well as early years practitioners and managers responsible for staff training.

Teresa Wilson is a recently retired Associate Professor from the Institute of Education at the University of Reading, UK. Her main research interest has been the relationship between parents and practitioners and how to reflect on making it positive and productive for all.