Theme 2 - Really?

Hi All,
Judith Staff & I lead a one day PB-based Early Years Safeguarding Seminar Event in Milton Keynes yesterday and one of the questions raised highlighted potential difficulties arising from teaching young children the correct anatomical names for parts of the body and a person's cultural beliefs.

I have a fairly strong opinion on this and went some way to sharing it yesterday. However I also thought this would make for a good forum discussion as I think it's a question lots of people have raised or thought about, so why not have it on record for as many people as want to join in and share their views and ideas.

For me, this is a wonderful opportunity to reiterate Themes 1 & 2 and the Language of Safety, which are all about a person's right to feel safe, being able to talk about anything, even if it feels awful or small and to do so using the language of safety model which endeavours to enhance relationship and empower all involved.

Looking forward to hearing what other people think before I add some more.

SA

Thanks Sally Ann, I was lucky enough to be part of this conference, which was, in my opinion an absolutly great day!

I strongly believe in respecting culteral beleiefs and have over the years worked hard to be part of our multiculteral society and gaining an insite into culteral beliefs that my be different from my own experiences.

However, I also strongly believe in keeping children, young people, and vulnerable adults safe. It has been evidenced that if children are empowered, know and can use the correct names for body parts and are confident in talking about them, then they are less vulnerable to abuse.

I would always want to work with parents with this and hope this can be done in harmony. But as Sally Ann sais 'this is a wonderful opportunity to reiterate Themes 1 & 2 and the Language of Safety, which are all about a person's right to feel safe, being able to talk about anything, even if it feels awful or small and to do so using the language of safety model which endeavours to enhance relationship and empower all involved.'

If a child tells me that someone came into his/her room and put a penny in their purse
, I would like to think that I would would be insiteful enough to check out what I have been told but without the training and experience I and a lot of others on this forum have, would everyone? I think th Shared meaning, clarity here is sooo important. For me this fits in also to ' from my head to my toes I say what goes'

I could go on but these were my initial thoughts
, hope its not too rambly

Melanie