The real team around the child

Now, bear in mind I'm no artist and I do not have DCSF's budget at my fingertips with which to employ one. I just have me, my old computer, and my pathetic little copy of MS Paint. But in answer to the old 'Get out your magnifying glasses to spot where the parents are' ECM 'Team Around the Child' diagram:










I wanted to make one of my own. Here it is:




















You can enlarge these images and thus read the text by clicking on them. Mine has the beloved child in the centre (only there by implication in theirs) followed by people in concentric protective rings as follows:

• Parents and siblings
• Other relatives
• Close friends
• Neighbours
• Other acquaintances
• Professionals with whom we *choose* to consult, and
• Passing strangers

In its Staying Safe: Action Plan [opens pdf], the government does include parents in a small section way over to the right of its picture, and I have extended the same courtesy in my own picture: there is the government, in a little grey power pyramid over to the right of our protective circles around the child and yes, that's the Eye of Sauron on the top.

Here are some more pics of my children with their 'teams':


















Lucky? No. It takes effort and self-reliance over time to build teams like that. We can't rely on the government to do it for us, or we get relegated to the little strip on the right, from where have to stand on our tiptoes or beg to even catch sight of our own children. And it's us that they need, not a bunch of teachers and social workers whose faces change every year.

Tomorrow I'm planning to start trying to work out which bits of ECM are statutory and which aren't. Today, we're apparently playing Spore (if it wasn't for this review business, I'd be writing about the educational value in that game) and meeting with friends at a playgym. The boys are at their club; the business is starting to take off. Busy busy! But still too cold for gardening.