Unit 18- Promote the wellbeing and resilience of children and young people

Unit 18- Promote the wellbeing and resilience of children and young people

1.1 Explain 5 factors that can influence the wellbeing of children and young people.

1. Social – The social environment will influence the child’s wellbeing – it can affect how a child is perceived by others, eg, if a child comes from a economically deprived area, people my think that they are unlikely to achieve, and refer to stereotypes rather than judge each child on their own merits

2. physical – If a child has a physical disability, they will require extra support to enable them to perform to their best potential, without it they may not develop their social skills, have fewer job opportunities and will ultimately affect their wellbeing.

3. Poor diet –a poor diet will affect a young person in many ways – a lack of a balanced diet will stop the child receiving essential vitamins and minerals required for a healthy lifestyle, it can also have a negative impact on the child’s physical development. A poor diet involving too much food will affect the child just as much. Too much food, coupled with a lack of exercise, can lead to lots of medical issues EG, obesity, the onset of childhood diabetes etc. It may also affect the child’s social skills development and community involvement.

4. Lack of rest/Sleep – a lack of sleep, either through parental influences (neglect, abuse or simple poor parenting) or through choice (staying up late to watch TV, playing on video games etc) will have a huge influence on a child’s wellbeing.

5. Lack of preventative health measures – This will affect the wellbeing of children. Not immunising against common, and potentially serious diseases and infections such as: measles, mumps, rubella or meningitis can cause very serious side effects and in extreme circumstances even death.

1.2 Why is it important to encourage resilience in children and young people?

Building resilience in children and young people is very important as it helps gives them a way of coping with negative experiences and helps them to become independent, empathetic and responsible.
Resilience in a child will help them to become confident, improve problem solving and the ability to deal with both their own emotions and those of others.

1.3 Using examples from your setting analyse effective ways of promoting wellbeing and resilience.

We promote wellbeing and resilience in our setting by:
Keeping them safe (secure environment, appropriate staff ratios, DBS checks on all staff etc)
Listening to their opinions – residents meetings, key work sessions
Involving them in decisions that affect them – Independent multi-agency reviews, key working sessions etc
Encourage opportunities – offer physical activities, help with opportunities for developing hobbies and interests or group activities
Involve parents where appropriate in planning
Promote independence

1.4 Using examples from your setting describe ways of working with carers to promote wellbeing and resilience in children and young people.

I work in a residential Children’s home. As carers we promote the wellbeing of our service users by:
Circulating pertinent information to colleagues to ensure a consistent approach happens
Keeping them safe (secure environment, appropriate staff ratios, DBS checks on all staff etc)
Listening to their opinions – residents meetings, key work sessions
Involving them in decisions that affect them – Independent multi-agency reviews, key working sessions etc
Encourage opportunities – offer physical activities, help with opportunities for developing hobbies and interests or group activities
Involve parents where appropriate in planning
Promote independence – cooking, cleaning, planning and budgeting skills

2.1 Explain why social and emotional identity are important to the wellbeing and resilience of children.

Social and Emotional identity are important to a child’s wellbeing and resilience as it helps children and young people to recognise and value their place in the family, the community and wider society by developing a sense of belonging and citizenship. It helps them to form positive relationships and feel emotionally secure by having a positive self image. Young people with a positive self image will have a greater disposition to learning.

2.2 Using 5 examples from your setting explain how you can support children and young people to identify with their own self-image and identity.
1. We ensure every child is represented in displays, posters and other materials

2. The children and young people are given the opportunity to dress in a way that reflects their own self image and individualism

3. We show recognition of respect for individuality of the child and plan activities accordingly

4. We also encourage the young people’s cultural and ethnic networks, and celebrate all cultures and ethnicities within the unit.

5. We also promote life story work, work as positive role models and encourage the same from visitors and visits to relevant establishments.

2.3 How do you encourage children and young people to recognise and value their own abilities, talents and achievements?

I try and spend time with the young people i am assigned to work with to talk about their thoughts and needs. This is either through 1-2-1 discussions or through activities. I will always try and encourage the young person to be open and honest, while being open and honest in return. I try and encourage focus on the positives – their strengths and achievements rather than weakness and failure. We celebrate success and progress and show that skills developed in one area can be transferred into another.

2.4 Using examples from your own practice describe how you support children and young people to be involved in decisions.
We hold monthly residents meetings where all sorts of things are discussed, including trips and activities, rules and best practise, menus etc. I always encourage the young people to participate in these meetings and make their views heard.
During Key worker sessions, we get the young people to ‘buy in’ to plans by encouraging them to formulate the plans themselves, and agree a way in which these can be monitored.

2.5 Explain how goals and targets you have identified for individual children in your setting contribute towards building the self esteem of the child or young person.
Completion of targets and reaching goals give children and young people a sense of achievement and success; has a positive impact on the self-
Esteem and motivation of child or young person; goals should be challenging but realistic and achievable for child or young person. Setting realistic S.M.A.R.T targets at Valley View helps both with the young person’s self esteem and their behaviours, reducing the negative behaviours also has the knock on effect of helping with self esteem.

3.2 Explain how a solution focused approach will encourage children and young people to have a positive outlook on their lives.
A solution focused approach gets a child or young person to look at how they would like to see their future. This focus allows a child or young person to look at what is going well for them, and identify the actions they need to take to continue on in way to achieve their preferred future.
This will help the child and young people develop a sense of responsibility and will allow them to identify benefits of taking a positive approach to their life, and the choices they make, it will also allow them to identify the negative aspects in their life and give them the opportunity to change these for the better.