Introduce
Greater Manchester has an ambition of improving outcomes for early years children and families. It wants to do this by providing support for its formal and informal workforce. To support this, the GM REFLECT Framework has been co-designed and developed with practitioners from across the GM system.
The GM REFLECT Framework enables practitioners to carry out a self-assessment of their skills, knowledge, abilities and characteristics. It aims to:
- Create a culture of learning, with shared and easy to access resources to develop practice.
- Set out expectations of the baseline understanding of employees new to the role/sector, and support them to manage their own strengths and areas for development.
- Give employers and leaders a better understanding of the current skills and experience of their employees and support them better.
- Help training providers to better align their learning outcomes with our regional priorities.
Develop
The GM REFLECT Framework recognises that different people will need different depths of understanding. We call these levels our three ‘tiers’
Tier 1 is the content we think everybody would benefit from knowing – from practitioners working directly with children, and for the wider workforce such as admin staff. It covers the basics of child development, safeguarding, multi-agency working and effective communication.
Tier 2 is focused on all early years front-line practitioners – those working on a day-to-day basis with children or families, who have responsibility for improving their outcomes as part of their main role.
Tier 3 is aimed at developing leadership skills and expectations across the workforce – and the supplementary competencies that are needed by people at different levels of their leadership careers.
