A reflection to identify and develop professional skills of early years practitioners advocating children's rights within their practice

What do Children’s Rights look like in practice?
The main aim of this study was to explore how early years professionals define 'what Children's Rights look like within their practice. This research relates to previous work based research undertaken to explore professional early years training opportunities to deliver CPD. The work of Schon (1987) on reflective practice and Archard (2005) on Children’s Rights provides the underpinning theoretical framework.
This small scale qualitative research was conducted from an interpretative perspective. Reflective journals and small focus groups were used to explore how early years practitioners identified 'what Children's Rights actually look like in practice' and ‘the skills set required to offer child led provision’.
All participants were informed of this research and of its purpose. Ethical procedures for ensuring confidentiality have been put in place.
Findings suggest that capturing ‘what’ Children’s Rights looks like within practice is challenging to quantify.
The majority of practitioners reflected that transforming their knowledge into a definite skill, product or aspect of practice is both complex and challenging to articulate. Therefore, further vocational training to develop a children’s rights based approach is required. The knowledge gained from this research will be used to underpin future research to impact upon professional practitioner training and modify how a year three Children’s Rights module is delivered.