Key Person Approach Essay

This essay will discuss the Key Person approach and its impact on children and their families. It will critically analyse some of the benefits, challenges and barriers that the key person system may have on an early years setting, its provision, the children and their families. It will discuss transitions that children may experience, and how practitioners can help to support them and their families during this process. This will have reference to appropriate theorists such as John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Supporting references will be shown throughout this essay to support the writing.
The Key Person system is a way of working in an early years setting, where the aim is to focus mainly on enabling and supporting close attachments and relationships

For babies and young children, the key person approach ensures that each child feels special and individual, and a sense of safety and a caring nature whilst they are in a different environment as appose to their homes. For the child, they will experience a close relationship with somebody other than their parents. (Elfer, 2012). The parent will experience benefits of the key person approach. Parents have the chance to build up a personal and positive relationship with one member of staff rather than all of the practitioners in the setting. They also get the chance to share positive and maybe negative experiences that might happen between the child and themselves, the practitioners get chance to share experiences also. (Elfer, 2012). The Key Person approach is very hard work, the practitioner has to be committed to the child, and their families for it to be a positive experience. The relationship between the practitioner and the child needs to be understood and supported by every settings individual policies and management, as the Key Person approach is very demanding of a practitioner. (Elfer, 2012). If a child does not have a very secure or positive attachment with their parents or carers, then one with their key person in the setting can sometimes compensate for the one they do not have at home. (O’Connor, 2013). Another benefit of a key worker is that they can support a child through the different transitions they go through, this may be moving house, moving up in the nursery, or simply being dropped off at nursery by their parents. (O’Connor, 2006) Children go through many transitions in their life, they go through many different transitions in just one day, and the key person can help to support the child if they have a secure and positive relationship with them. In order to support a child through a transition they