Sharing love with practitioners in Falkirk

Yesterday I had the pleasure to meet a group of enthusiastic, kind, loving practitioners who work in Falkirk in Early Learning and Childcare. They were attending a training session entitled "The Image of the Child".

Lisa, Education Team Manager, was challenging the group to think beyond procedures and policies and remember the child. She asked them what influenced their image of the child. There were some lively discussions about the different external influences that impacted upon their understanding of the child in the setting.

She then asked them to consider love. She spoke about a care inspector who fought vehemently to include love in her formal inspection report because she felt that was what she had witnessed. There then followed a great discussion around what love might look like, what did the inspector see that made her fight so strongly to have it included in her report.

I was then asked to share my research. As I always find there is general interest in this subject and then the real interest kicks in when I ask the question "what do you say when a child says 'I love you'?". This really gets the room chattering, often to the point I end up having to shout over the top of everyone to reign everyone back into a group discussion. What I found really interesting about this group was they were all sold on love already. There were a few were unsure of what they might say as they felt uncomfortable with the words 'I love you' but all confidently said they definitely loved all of the child in their care. This is a huge change from when I began my research 4 years ago, which is brilliant, it means people are getting on board and challenging the notion that it is somehow wrong to love the children we work with.

We spoke about how love fits in with professionalism and also how things have changed over the years, with different policy trends impacting upon practice. There were some really good discussions around the issue of 'touch', 'cuddles' etc. With most feeling that they would cuddle no matter whether they were told not to. There was also discussion around feeling that when inspected love might be frowned upon.

I have absolutely no doubt that this group were totally on board and ready to join me on my quest to 'bring love back into childcare'. It was a brilliant training session and I just want to thank Lisa McCabe and Sue Palmer (for putting me in touch with Lisa) for the opportunity to share love with these amazing practitioners in Falkirk.

As one practitioner said to me "I don't see what is wrong with saying you love a child, there is nothing wrong with it". Music to my ears!