Positive Relationships: The Key Person System - Close to you

Elinor Goldschmied made a unique contribution to our understanding of the experience of very young children. She was keenly interested in their cognitive development and introduced major innovations in early years practice - notably the Treasure Basket and Heuristic Play (Nursery World, 9 April, pp 26-27). But Elinor was equally concerned with children's emotional well-being.

Her special gift was to translate the theories of writers like Freud and John Bowlby into practical everyday action. Above all, she was realistic. So much advice for childcare practitioners seems to be aimed at people in an ideal situation which rarely, if ever, exists. Elinor started from things as they are and considered how they could be made better.

Elinor saw children from their earliest days as people, who have not yet developed the means to convey their feelings and wishes in words. At the centre of her practice was the idea of children as individuals, with their own ideas, desires and experiences.

It is our job to try to understand what they are saying to us and respect their communications. One way to do that is by thinking, what adult experience is similar to that of the child and what are our feelings about it?

Almost all of us have, or would like to have, a special relationship with at least one person, which is significant and precious to us. As adults we have means, by letters, e-mails and telephone calls, of preserving our link with that person when we are separated from them, but children do not have that possibility. They need to experience relationships in an immediate and concrete way. This is the thinking that underlies the key person system.

The key person system

Should mothers of young children go out to work? For much of Elinor's professional life this issue was hotly debated, but for her it was an irrelevant question. She recognised that for many families on low incomes and single parents, who made up the vast majority of those using day nurseries in the second half of the 20th century, the decision for the mother to go out to work was unavoidable.

The point was, how could the fact that many women with children under three need or want to work outside the home be managed with the least distress or harm to the children? The research finding that underpins the key person system is that children are capable of multiple attachments - in fact, the more securely attached they are to a parent, the easier they find it to form other relationships. As Elinor used to say, love is not like an apple, where if one piece is eaten there is less for others.

If we follow an individual baby or child through a complete day in the average childcare centre, we are likely to find that she is handled by many different workers and there is little time, if any, when she has the undivided attention of an adult. This has serious implications both for emotional and language development.

When we meet a small child for the first time we usually find it very difficult to understand what they are trying to tell us. It is only through close daily contact that we learn to interpret their words and behaviour. The point of the key person system, as devised by Elinor Goldschmied, is to ensure that every child in a daycare setting has a special relationship with a particular adult who knows them intimately.

How does it work?

Elinor gave a great deal of thought to the practical operation of a key person system in a childcare setting, developing her ideas over the years from her early work with child refugees during and after the second world war, through her observations in Italy and Barcelona and, following her 'retirement', in day nurseries around the UK.

First of all, it is important that the child becomes aware of the identity of their key person through intimate daily contact: feeding, dressing, washing, changing and conversation.

Since this individual will have to be shared with other children, it will not be possible for all personal care to be carried out by that person alone, but by giving the key person system primacy in the organisation of the day, it can happen much more often than is usually the case.

The island of intimacy

Elinor observed that in most day nurseries and childcare centres, the maximum number of staff are present during the middle of the day. For a short period before the midday meal, around 20 minutes, it should be possible for each group of four or five children to have the undivided attention of their key person.

When play materials and activities have been tidied away, the nursery worker takes her group to the bathroom and then withdraws with them into a quiet corner, where she should be protected from telephone calls and other distractions. The idea behind this is the need to build firmly into the day's programme a period when the key person for each group of children can concentrate entirely on them.

Elinor had many suggestions for how to use this 'island time'. Essentially, this is for listening on the part of the adult, but the key person can provide objects or pictures as a focus for conversation, which need to be kept specially for this short period.

Materials for the 'island of intimacy' might include:

- postcards with pictures of animals or children

- collections of buttons, shells or other varied small objects

- purses, bags or boxes with objects inside them

- small kaleidoscopes

- pictures or objects related to the key person's own hobbies or interests.

The important thing is that this time should be 'tranquil'. Then, when the meal is ready, the key person goes to the table with their small group.

What are the obstacles?

When a key person system is first proposed, many objections are usually raised on practical grounds. However, the real difficulty is not organisational but emotional. Some childcare workers feel apprehensive about developing a close relationship with a child who is not their own.

They fear that other children might feel less valued or become jealous. They may also anticipate the pain of the inevitable parting, when the child moves to another group or leaves to go to school. Perhaps they have observed that a child who is closely attached to a particular adult in the nursery may become more demanding and less compliant.

For all these reasons, it used to be common practice to discourage such attachments and treat staff members as if they were interchangeable.

Elinor emphasised strongly that a key person system will only work, and therefore be maintained, if the nursery staff are convinced that it will benefit the children, the parents and themselves. For it to succeed, it must have the wholehearted commitment of the manager of the centre and a staff group in which everybody is convinced of its value. Its introduction needs to be preceded by an extended period of discussion in which all have a chance to express their views and have their doubts explored and acknowledged.

Is it worth going to all this trouble when, in practice, the relationship between the key person and the child and his or her family may only last for a few months? We need to remember that for a child aged two, six months is a very long time. Probably the child will grow up with no conscious memory of the key person who may have been so important in their earliest years, but as the Italian poet Primo Levi memorably wrote, 'Each of us bears the imprint/Of a friend met along the way'. The attachments we form in our earliest years set a pattern for our ability to make relationships for the rest of our lives.

Sonia Jackson is Professor of Social Care and Education at the Institute of Education, University of London

THE KEY PERSON - ESSENTIAL POINTS

- Each child and family should have a 'key person'.

- This should not change unless the child shows a strong preference for another staff member.

- The allocated key person should do a home visit before the child starts attending and be responsible for liaison with parents and other professionals.

- Feeding and personal care should always be provided by the key person where possible.

- The key person should have a 'deputy' to allow for absence through illness or any other cause. The child needs to know who this is and have it explained why their special person is not there.

- No telephone calls to be accepted in 'island time' except in emergency.

Further information: You can read more about Elinor's life and the influences that formed her ideas and teaching in my article 'A real treasure' (Nursery World, 21 July 2005)

- Elinor Goldschmied and Sonia Jackson, People Under Three: Young children in daycare, 2nd edition, Routledge, 2004