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<strong>Home</strong> <strong>Visit</strong>ing<br />
<strong>Toolkit</strong><br />
Working with families to promote home learning
Contents<br />
Introduction 3<br />
5 peas of transition 4<br />
<strong>Home</strong> visiting confidence audit 5<br />
Reflecting on home visiting 6<br />
Top Tips for home visiting 9<br />
<strong>Home</strong> visiting guidance 10<br />
Top Tips for practitioners supporting partnership with parents/carers 14<br />
Top Tips for home learning 15<br />
Universal ‘All about me’ guidance 16<br />
Universal ‘All about me’ record 19<br />
Top Tips for talking 25<br />
<strong>Home</strong> learning evaluation form for families 26<br />
<strong>Home</strong> learning evaluation form for settings 28<br />
Resource Directory 30<br />
Information leaflets are included in the pocket on the inside back cover<br />
2 <strong>Home</strong> <strong>Visit</strong>ing Guidance Pack © Bath & North East Somerset Council
Introduction to the <strong>Home</strong> <strong>Visit</strong>ing Guidance Pack<br />
This guidance pack has been developed to support<br />
you with planning home visits so that they will have<br />
maximum benefit to you, the children and families.<br />
By visiting a family in their own home prior to their<br />
child starting at the setting, you begin the formation of<br />
a trusting, informed relationship between the family<br />
and your setting. When handled well, parents/carers<br />
will feel valued as experts and you can begin the<br />
important process of sharing in their child’s<br />
development.<br />
<strong>Home</strong> visits also provide a great opportunity to begin<br />
discussing home learning and so this guidance pack<br />
also considers how you can help families to<br />
understand what they can do to support their child.<br />
‘<strong>Home</strong> learning’ refers to all the things that parents/<br />
carers do as a natural part of family life that support<br />
their child’s development and learning. As you will be<br />
aware, it includes everyday things such as singing<br />
nursery rhymes, helping to load the washing machine<br />
or going on a trip to the local park or supermarket.<br />
Parents/carers will benefit from your knowledge of<br />
child development to help them understand how<br />
these things help their child and how to carry out<br />
these and other activities in a way that encourages<br />
learning.<br />
Research has shown that the home learning<br />
environment is the single biggest influence on a<br />
child’s development. Sharing this fact with families<br />
can empower and motivate them to support their<br />
child’s learning.<br />
<strong>Home</strong> learning is key to narrowing the attainment gap<br />
between children from disadvantaged backgrounds<br />
and their peers. By the age of just 22 months, the<br />
learning and development of children from<br />
disadvantaged backgrounds has often already fallen<br />
behind that of their peers.<br />
We would recommend that you do NOT give parents/<br />
carers all the information included in the pack at once<br />
as this may overload them. Instead select information<br />
you wish to share at the home visit and then plan<br />
other appropriate times to share the remaining<br />
information e.g. at a parent/key person meeting to<br />
discuss the child’s first learning summary. In this way<br />
families are more likely to act on the information you<br />
share and their children will benefit.<br />
The pack contains the following documents:<br />
For you as a setting:<br />
• ‘Reflecting on home visiting’ – a tool to support<br />
your team in discussing the benefits and<br />
challenges of home visiting.<br />
• ‘Top tips- home visiting’ – a useful summary of<br />
key aspects of practice<br />
• ‘Top tips- home learning’ – a summary of how to<br />
effectively encourage home learning<br />
• ‘<strong>Home</strong> visit evaluation form’ – a sample<br />
evaluation form to reflect on each individual home<br />
visit.<br />
Information to be shared with families:<br />
• A suggested ‘All About Me record’ and<br />
accompanying guidance notes<br />
• ‘Why am I being offered a home visit’? – a leaflet<br />
for parents/carers explaining the purpose of home<br />
visiting and what to expect.<br />
What can my toddler learn...? – leaflets with<br />
ideas and practical tips for supporting home<br />
learning.<br />
The leaflets include – messy play, books, maths,<br />
treasure baskets, singing, playing outdoors.<br />
• ‘<strong>Home</strong> visit evaluation form’– a sample<br />
evaluation form to be completed with each family<br />
to measure impact of the home visit.<br />
Effects upon literacy at age 5<br />
Mean effect<br />
5<br />
4<br />
3<br />
2<br />
1<br />
0<br />
gender<br />
low<br />
birthweight<br />
duration<br />
pre-school<br />
quality<br />
pre-school<br />
social<br />
class<br />
home<br />
environment<br />
Graph reproduced with the kind permission of Edward Melhuish,<br />
co-author of EPPE, 2008, based on EPPE data.<br />
www.centreforum.org/assets/pubs/parenting-matters.pdf<br />
http://www.foundationyears.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/<br />
EYFS_Parents_Guide.doc<br />
<strong>Home</strong> <strong>Visit</strong>ing Guidance Pack © Bath & North East Somerset Council 3
5 peas of transition<br />
Transitions are an inevitable part of all of our lives and effective transitions are vital to provide continuity<br />
throughout the Early Years Foundation Stage. The ‘5 peas of transition’ provide a context for effective transitions.<br />
Plan<br />
Know your children well.<br />
Who will need extra<br />
support? Who will<br />
support transition times?<br />
What needs to be<br />
shared?<br />
Who needs to be<br />
involved?<br />
Who will lead?<br />
Prepare<br />
Give children and their<br />
families sufficient<br />
warning of change.<br />
Prepare them using<br />
methods which are<br />
appropriate to each<br />
individual’s<br />
circumstances.<br />
People<br />
Identify a key attachment<br />
figure in the setting.<br />
Children need a ‘safe<br />
adult’ to support them<br />
with changes.<br />
Place<br />
Children need time to<br />
familiarise themselves<br />
with new environments.<br />
Sometimes new<br />
environments may need<br />
adaptations in order to<br />
welcome new arrivals.<br />
Play<br />
Familiarity in routines can<br />
help children to feel<br />
secure. Learn about how<br />
each child learns, value<br />
this and plan for this.<br />
4 <strong>Home</strong> <strong>Visit</strong>ing Guidance Pack © Bath & North East Somerset Council
How confident are you...<br />
B. that your vision and values, policies and practices<br />
reflect a home learning programme.<br />
Date 1st completed<br />
Date 2nd completed<br />
5<br />
4<br />
A. that parents/carers are valued as<br />
their child’s first educator and you<br />
continue to engage them by suggesting<br />
activities to support learning at home.<br />
5<br />
4<br />
3<br />
2<br />
1<br />
0<br />
3<br />
2<br />
1<br />
0<br />
0<br />
1<br />
2<br />
3<br />
4<br />
5<br />
C. that as a staff team you value and embed<br />
the role of the key person and understand<br />
how this relationship can support the child’s<br />
learning at home.<br />
<strong>Home</strong><br />
<strong>Visit</strong>ing<br />
F. that you try different strategies to<br />
engage your families so that you can<br />
begin to build trusting relationships and<br />
know them well.<br />
5<br />
4<br />
3<br />
2<br />
1<br />
0<br />
0<br />
1<br />
2<br />
0<br />
1<br />
2<br />
3<br />
4<br />
5<br />
D. that you fully inform parents/carers about<br />
your transition process and they are actively<br />
involved at every level.<br />
3<br />
4<br />
5<br />
E. that all families are aware of the purpose of a home<br />
visit and the benefits of home learning.<br />
5 = very confident<br />
3 = a little unsure<br />
1 = not at all confident<br />
<strong>Home</strong> <strong>Visit</strong>ing Guidance Pack © Bath & North East Somerset Council 5
Reflecting on home visits – What is stopping you?<br />
This resource gives you the opportunity as a staff team to answer questions that should support you in developing your provision for group times.<br />
Use the blank boxes to record your discussions and thinking.<br />
What?<br />
• What is the purpose of a home visit and what do you hope to achieve?<br />
• What does a home visit involve?<br />
• What will be the benefits to children, parents/carers and your setting?<br />
• What are the potential barriers you may face when offering parents/carers<br />
a home visit?<br />
• What strategies might you employ to overcome barriers so that home visits<br />
are successful?<br />
Why?<br />
• Why do you want to introduce home visits as part of your setting practice?<br />
• Why is home learning important and how will home visiting support with this?<br />
• Why do you think it is important to acknowledge parents/carers as the child’s<br />
first educator? And engage them in their child’s learning?<br />
• Why is it important that the whole team is committed to home visiting?<br />
• Why might a parent/carer choose not to accept a home visit?<br />
6 <strong>Home</strong> <strong>Visit</strong>ing Guidance Pack © Bath & North East Somerset Council
When?<br />
• When do you plan to offer your home visits e.g. before they start, during settling<br />
or as flexibly as possible?<br />
• When will you offer home visits in the year? How will you gradually introduce this<br />
into your practice?<br />
• When will you offer a home visit e.g. choose a time of the day or week that is<br />
quieter to support releasing staff?<br />
• When will you review your processes for home visiting?<br />
• When and how do you plan to gather feedback from parents/carers, children and<br />
staff to monitor the impact of the home visits?<br />
Who?<br />
• Who in the staff team should lead on the home visit?<br />
• Who should you expect from the family to be present at the home visit?<br />
• Who will you offer a home visit to e.g. children entitled to 2 year funding and<br />
EYPP or universally?<br />
• Who will benefit from the home visit?<br />
• Who will co-ordinate the home visits?<br />
How?<br />
• How will you make clear the benefits of home visits to parents/carers to support<br />
them to engage with this process?<br />
• How will you embed home visiting as part of your vision and values?<br />
• How flexible do you plan to be in offering home visits?<br />
• How do you plan to organise staff to enable home visits to be offered?<br />
• How will you ensure the quality of each home visit?<br />
• How will you know if the home visit has made a difference to families?<br />
• How will you encourage and reassure families who are reluctant to have a home visit?<br />
<strong>Home</strong> <strong>Visit</strong>ing Guidance Pack © Bath & North East Somerset Council 7
Where?<br />
• Where will the home visit take place e.g. consider families who share the care of<br />
a child, are moving home or would prefer an alternative to meeting at home such as<br />
a Children’s Centre?<br />
• Where are you willing to travel to?<br />
• Where do you plan to gather important information e.g. completion of registration<br />
form or, ‘All about me’ record etc before or during the visit?<br />
• Where can further information be found to support you with implementing home visits?<br />
e.g. the HUB resources, CPD, 2 year home visiting funding accessed through the<br />
Early Years Service?<br />
Finally consider...<br />
• How the child and family are going to feel about the home visit?<br />
• How will you ensure the family will feel an equal partner in their child’s learning and<br />
development?<br />
• How you will ensure the home visit is an enjoyable experience for the child and family,<br />
not just an opportunity to gather information?<br />
Remember this is not only a rewarding experience but an opportunity to build a<br />
meaningful partnership with parents/carers, which will have a long lasting<br />
impact on children’s learning and well-being.<br />
8 <strong>Home</strong> <strong>Visit</strong>ing Guidance Pack © Bath & North East Somerset Council
Top Tips for home visiting<br />
Why offer<br />
a home visit?<br />
How will<br />
it work?<br />
Who<br />
should go?<br />
When is<br />
a good time?<br />
<strong>Home</strong> visits are an invaluable<br />
opportunity to build a genuine<br />
relationship with the child and<br />
family, beginning your<br />
partnerships with parents/carers<br />
and an attachment with the child.<br />
A home visit can enable you to<br />
prepare effectively for a child’s<br />
arrival and support their smooth<br />
transition into your setting.<br />
<strong>Home</strong> visiting should be a<br />
positive experience for staff,<br />
children and families.<br />
To enable this to happen it is<br />
important to plan how you will<br />
offer this as part of your setting<br />
practice without impacting on the<br />
day-to-day running of your setting<br />
and without the home visit feeling<br />
rushed.<br />
This could be an opportunity for<br />
the key person to establish a<br />
bond with the child and family<br />
before they start at your setting.<br />
To make the most of the visit it<br />
can be beneficial to go as a pair<br />
so there is an opportunity for one<br />
staff member to speak to the<br />
parents/carers and for one staff<br />
member to spend time with the<br />
child.<br />
When considering at what point<br />
you want to offer families a home<br />
visit, think about why you are<br />
offering a visit and how home<br />
visits will fit in with your setting<br />
vision and values. <strong>Home</strong> visiting<br />
can be invaluable in building<br />
relationships before a child starts<br />
in your setting, so when they<br />
arrive they recognise key people,<br />
which reduces any anxieties.<br />
What should<br />
I have in place?<br />
When planning home visits, it is<br />
important to consider how you<br />
will safeguard your staff.<br />
Do you have a policy in place for<br />
lone working? Do your staff have<br />
appropriate car insurance? Do<br />
they have access to a mobile<br />
phone which is not their personal<br />
one? Do they feel confident to<br />
visit families in their own homes?<br />
What do<br />
I take?<br />
It is important to consider what<br />
you want to achieve at the visit as<br />
this will help you decide what to<br />
take. It could be an opportunity to<br />
complete an ‘All about me form’<br />
with the parents/carers.<br />
You may decide to take<br />
something for the child e.g.<br />
resources or something to<br />
decorate such as a name card.<br />
What about<br />
Staff expectations?<br />
For home visiting to be an<br />
effective resource, staff need to<br />
feel confident that they<br />
understand the purpose of a<br />
home visit and what they are<br />
expected to do.<br />
If staff have a clear purpose they<br />
will be able to plan effectively to<br />
gain the most out of each home<br />
visit for themselves and the family.<br />
‘Children always remember and<br />
talk about a home visit long after<br />
the event; it is a special occasion<br />
in their lives and enhances the<br />
practitioner –child relationship.’<br />
http://www.peal.org.uk/. 2007.<br />
Parents, Early Years and<br />
Learning(PEAL). [ONLINE]<br />
Available at: http://www.peal.<br />
org.uk/.<br />
With Thanks to Atelier Nursery, Barnaby Pre-school, Free Rangers Nursery, Orchard Lea Keynsham Nursery, The Learning Tree Nursery, Queen’s Road Pre-school<br />
<strong>Home</strong> <strong>Visit</strong>ing Guidance Pack © Bath & North East Somerset Council 9
<strong>Home</strong> <strong>Visit</strong>ing Guidance<br />
<strong>Visit</strong>ing families at home is embedded into many settings practice.<br />
Many settings offer to visit a child and family at home,<br />
before the child starts at their setting, as part of their<br />
planned transition process. This provides the<br />
opportunity for the child, family and practitioners to<br />
begin forming trusting relationships, share<br />
information, value home learning and aid a positive<br />
and smooth transition into the setting. <strong>Home</strong> visiting<br />
is one way to ensure you are meeting one of the<br />
statutory requirements of the Early Years Foundation<br />
Stage.<br />
‘The key person must help ensure that every child’s<br />
learning and care is tailored to meet their individual<br />
needs. The key person must seek to engage and<br />
support parents and/or carers in guiding their child’s<br />
development at home.’ DfE, 2014 Statutory<br />
Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage.<br />
Research has shown that the involvement of parent/<br />
carers in their child’s learning has the biggest impact<br />
on their long term outcomes The Effective Provision<br />
of Pre-School Education (EPPE). Building trusting<br />
relationships with parents/carers is key to ensuring<br />
they are involved in their child’s learning and<br />
development every step of the way. <strong>Home</strong> visiting<br />
provides a supportive environment to begin<br />
developing this relationship, particularly for parents/<br />
carers who may have their own reasons for being<br />
reluctant to become involved.<br />
‘The relationship between parent and practitioner is at<br />
the heart of effective services to involve parents/<br />
carers in their children’s early learning. For a parent<br />
who lacks the confidence and trust to access<br />
services, forming a warm and positive relationship<br />
with a practitioner can be the bridge to available help<br />
and information (Roberts K, 2009 Early <strong>Home</strong><br />
Learning Matters – A brief guide for practitioners).’<br />
This guidance was developed alongside a working<br />
party of practitioners, who value home visiting and<br />
feel ‘Every setting will approach home visiting<br />
differently; it’s the outcome and benefits to the child<br />
and family that are important.’<br />
Key principles:<br />
• To be used as an opportunity to begin the<br />
important journey of building positive, trusting<br />
partnerships with parents/carers<br />
• To be used as an opportunity to begin the<br />
attachment process with the child, to support a<br />
smooth transition into your setting.<br />
• To offer a genuine opportunity to gather unique<br />
information about the ‘story’ of each child and their<br />
families home learning<br />
• To better acknowledge the importance of parents/<br />
carers in their child’s early learning<br />
• For all staff to acknowledge the important role<br />
families play in their child’s learning and become<br />
confident in working with parents/carers to<br />
encourage early home learning.<br />
Vision and values:<br />
For home visiting to be effective it needs to be part of<br />
the bigger picture of how parental engagement will be<br />
supported and encouraged in your setting’s vision<br />
and values.<br />
• <strong>Home</strong> visiting needs to be a part of your setting<br />
ethos and valued by all staff.<br />
• Strong, effective leadership is needed to give the<br />
staff team the confidence and knowledge required<br />
to complete purposeful home visits.<br />
• The whole staff team need to value the home<br />
visiting process and know there are structures in<br />
place to support them. When starting out consider<br />
how to support staff to implement the setting’s<br />
vision regarding home visits e.g. through staff<br />
meetings, induction of new staff and supervision<br />
• The importance of engaging families in all aspects<br />
of your setting needs to be embedded through<br />
practice so parents/carers feel truly valued as<br />
partners in their child’s learning.<br />
• Consider if the setting vision and values reflects<br />
your ethos of wanting to improve outcomes for all<br />
children. You could use the Early Years Pupil<br />
Premium to support implementing home visits;<br />
ensuring your evidence to Ofsted shows the<br />
difference this is making to children.<br />
• The recruitment process should reflect the settings<br />
policy on home visiting to ensure new staff are fully<br />
aware of the ethos of your setting and what is<br />
expected of them.<br />
10 <strong>Home</strong> <strong>Visit</strong>ing Guidance Pack © Bath & North East Somerset Council