Essential Skills for Managers of Child-Centred Settings

Managers in child-centred settings need to be able to draw on a wide range of personal and professional skills to ensure that they are providing the best possible service. Now in its third edition, Essential Skills for Managers of Child-Centred Settings looks at how you can develop the key leadership skills needed to manage people to achieve excellent settings for children.

The authors outline ten ‘essential skills’ for leading and supporting those around you in your child-centred settings and offer sound advice so you can build your personal and professional skills and become a confident and assertive manager. With a balance of both accessible theory and practical application from a wide range of settings, this book explains management theory and will help you to develop the skills to:

● become a confident leader

● set clear aims and objectives for your setting

● manage your time effectively

● make decisions and implement change

● build and develop a team

● reflect on and develop practice

● deal with difficult situations and people.

This book also contains case studies and ‘real-life’ scenarios from managers undertaking training with the authors which will ensure you provide an excellent service in your setting. No manager or leader should be without this user-friendly guide!

Dr Shelly Newstead has worked in the playwork field for thirty years as a practitioner, trainer, author, editor and researcher. She has managed a wide range of child-centred settings and developed and delivered a series of management skills training courses specifically for this field through Common Threads (www.commonthreads.org.uk).

Emma Isles-Buck at one time worked as a trainer and manager in childcare and playwork. In addition, she was an assessor and external verifier for playwork NVQs, helping to develop playwork qualifications for CACHE and developing management courses and workshops for many different client groups in the UK and in Europe.