BLACKPOOL AND THE FYLDE COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP REVIEW 2021
The pursuit of happiness: an early year’s explorative study into the challenges of recognising and supporting child health and wellbeing. Françoise Peill FHEA, MEd “The health and wellbeing of today’s children depend on us having the courage and imagination to rise to the challenge of doing things differently, to put sustainability and wellbeing before economic growth and bring about a more equal and fair society” (Marmot, Allen, et al; 2020, p.6).
Abstract The escalating concerns in relation to child mental health and the power of early intervention are wellrecognised within the early year’s sector, however, there is no mandatory practice or model of wellbeing used within early year’s environments. Practitioners have little knowledge or have received insufficient training in order to help them recognise the signs and symptoms of poor wellbeing, and do not feel confident in measuring and monitoring the children to support positive health and wellbeing. This study examined child health and wellbeing within the early years sector and drew upon the evidence from thirty-two early years practitioners and ten nursery managers working in a deprived socio-economic community in the North-West of England. A constructivist paradigm was used to enable qualitative data to be collected from an interactive questionnaire from thirty-two different early years settings, with further data being gathered from three theme focus groups with ten experienced nursery/preschool managers. As part of the process of analysing the findings, two credible wellbeing models were used to support the discussion: the PERMA model of wellbeing (Seligman, 2015) and the SHANARRI wheel of wellbeing (Scottish Government, 2006). The findings exposed the lack of confidence of early years practitioners in identifying the precursors of health and wellbeing, and furthermore, their capacity to be able to monitor the progress to support individual children. The key issues transpiring from this analysis highlight that clear mandatory guidance should be available for early years practitioners and that there is a need for the development of a bespoke early years model to support the measuring of child health and wellbeing.
Context of study The town of Blackpool is a seaside resort on the coast of Lancashire, which hosts an estimated transient population of 141,500 (JSNA, Blackpool, 2020). The current data reported by Public Health England (2020), rate Blackpool as one of the 20% most deprived authorities in England and highlight that 52% of children live in low-income families. The report states that early year’s children living in the local area are severely impacted by the social determinants of the area and the impact of poverty. The community further indicates a high rate of
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