Giving voice to young children navigating complex life challenges through a strengths approach

Numerous experiences may be traumatic for children, such as parental separation and divorce, parental incarceration, abuse and neglect, natural disasters, experiencing unrest and wars, and life-threatening illness. Even though social and natural disasters are becoming increasingly prevalent, research investigating and offering practical advice to early childhood educators about supporting children during and after these events is limited. In this chapter, we use a Strengths Approach. The term Strengths Approach is sometimes used interchangeably to refer to both the specific approach developed by St. Luke’s, Australia (McCashen, 2005, 2017), and, as a descriptive term for broader strengths-based practices. In this paper, we use the upper-case naming convention to differentiate a specific “Strengths Approach” (McCashen, 2005) and lower case for other “strengths-based approaches”. We use a Strengths Approach as a framework to explore two vignettes illustrating how early childhood teachers listen to young children experiencing challenging events and respond by applying the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In these vignettes, the early childhood educators listened to young children’s stories about parental separation and divorce and child abuse and responded by prompting children to activate their own resources to enact positive change. This analysis adds to knowledge about how early childhood educators can listen to and give children a voice about sensitive life experiences that impact their lives. Educators and other professionals should recognise the multitude of ways in which children can communicate about sensitive topics, such as parental separation and divorce, and child abuse, and the myriad ways to encourage young children to have a voice and support the enactment of the CRC and SDGs.