Story#1

Potential Boredom and a Surprise

One of the aspects of being a childcare worker is the potential boredom of the job and there’s one thing that really gets me, that’s when there’s not enough children around. Staffing ratios mean that you have to be staffed up for the eventuality but sometimes this is far from the inevitable – you may have a predicted, say, 12 children planned for and then only two turn up for the three staff you have there.

This is when you have to think creatively. You can, of course, go out – you often have the ‘ratio’ to do this and it’s a change, isn’t it? It’s a very good idea to have a ready-made permission slip available so when the children arrive you can talk to the parents and obtain specific (even though you probably have a blanket low-level one attached to the registration forms) permission. To have this, you have to have some ideas about what this ‘specific’ might be. We used to go on the tram, to the local shops and supermarket, to a park, for instance; keeping this to a simple activity is a wise move and extreme sports, whilst a useful experience, are not generally advised.

Thinking about going out and the public arena, some 15 or so years ago I used to work with children with downs syndrome and I had a weird (or so it seemed at the time) experience with an 11 year old boy with whom I was working in the Derbyshire Peak District. Having just driven to a small town there, we were walking along together and a passer-by pressed a £1 coin into my hand. When I asked what it was for, the reply was that is was “ for your son, get him something special”. I can’t recall my immediate response but I do remember being surprised.

Later I got to thinking that, as a parent in this situation, this might be quite common? I also thought that there’s a certain finality about the condition, nothing will change significantly and the carer’s situation is one for life…one which contains a lot of devoted parental love.

4th March 2009
Andrew