Building Blocks for Child Social and Emotional Wellbeing (Building Blocks) is a brand new course from the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health and the team are very excited to share it with you. Building Blocks explores the foundations of children’s social and emotional wellbeing as a starting point to working collaboratively with parents to identify issues and concerns they may have about their child or children.
The course engages with practitioners from the understanding that the most critical aspect of a child’s social and emotional development is the context within which children grow up, which has a profound influence on their social and emotional wellbeing. The key concepts focus on child development within the context of the child’s family, community, and networks.
Factors such as the parent-child relationship, the family environment, developmental age and stage, family culture and spirituality, educational settings, and neighbourhood and community resources can all influence children’s social and emotional development. The course encourages practitioners to develop understandings of, and build partnerships with, these important stakeholders in the child’s life.
Derek McCormack is the Parenting Research Centre’s Project Manager on the NWCCMH project and a project lead on the Building Blocks course, he says the course content is hugely valuable for practitioners.
“The content we’ve developed covers some key topics for any practitioner working with parents. For example, Building Blocks includes evidence-based information on understanding children’s social emotional development, as well as guidance on conducting exploratory conversations with parents about children’s wellbeing. Developed in close partnership with practitioners, the course will help others as they reflect on and develop their own practice.”
Ian Bone from Artist Made Productions is the director of the NWCCMH’s educational design and highlights the rich and engaging use of video throughout the course.
“One of the key features is the use of rich, engaging video to provide practitioners with an opportunity to enhance their practice. They will hear from fictional parents who represent everyday parental concerns about children. They will reflect on what they hear from the parents, and what they would do in their practice. Then they’ll have the opportunity to hear from experienced practitioners and researchers across Australia, representing a broad range of professionals. These professionals also reflect on what the parents say, as well as provide insights about practice.”
Building Blocks is aimed at anyone who works with parents of children aged 0-12. Allied Health professionals, nurses, GPs, social services, early childhood education and care professionals will all benefit from learning how to work collaboratively with parents to provide them with effective and quality information and resources to support their children’s social and emotional wellbeing.