Level 2 Certificate for Children and Young People’s Workforce (England)

The level 2 qualification is aimed at anyone working in a supporting role. This could be as a nursery assistant, child care worker, crèche worker or special educational needs assistant.

The Certificate is a generic qualification that will be relevant across the Children and Young People’s Workforce.  It is mapped to the CWDC Induction Standards and the Children’s Care Learning and Development National Occupational Standards.

You must gain a minimum of 35 credits to achieve the qualification. 31 credits will come from the mandatory group of units and 4 credits from the optional group B units. Full details can be found in the qualification handbook.

Level 3 Diploma for Children and Young People’s Workforce

The level 3 Diploma is aimed at those people already working in the Children and Ypung People sector. For example, you may be working as a Practitioner, childminder, Nursery Nurse, Community worker or as a learning mentor.

You must gain a minimum of 65 credits to achieve the Level 3 Diploma for the Children and Young People’s Workforce Diploma.

To do this you must achieve 27 credits from:

• All 4 units of the Skills for Care and Development shared core
• All 7 Children and young People mandatory core units.

You must then select one mandatory occupational pathway from:

• Early Learning and Childcare (22 credits)
• Social Care (13 credits)
• Learning, Development and Support Services (13 credits).

The remaining credits must be achieved from a choice of optional units. Full details can be found in the qualification handbook.

The Certificate and Diploma for the Children and Young People’s Workforce replaces the following qualifications:

• NVQ in Children’s Care, Learning and Development (3171)
• Technical Certificate in Children’s Care, Learning and Development (3177)
• NVQ in Health and Social Care, the children and young people pathway in England only (3172-32).

NVQ 4 in Children’s Care, Learning and Development

You are a centre manager, senior practitioner, childminding co-ordinator or a pre-school adviser. You may have an overall responsibility of the services provided.

There are 4 core units:

• Establish and develop working relationships
• Support policies, procedures and practice to safeguard children and ensure their inclusion and well-being
• Support programmes for the promotion of children’s development
• Reflect on, review and develop own practice.

You also select 5 optional units from:

• Co-ordinate provision for babies and children under 3 years in partnership with their families
• Develop and support children’s early learning in partnership with teachers
• Support and evaluate the curriculum for children’s early learning
• Evaluate, assess and support the physical, intellectual, emotional and social development of children
• Evaluate assess and support children’s communication
• Evaluate, assess and support children’s creativity
• Evaluate assess and support children’s mathematical learning, exploration and problem solving
• Evaluate and coordinate the environment for children and families
• Develop and implement operational plans for your area of responsibility
• Co-ordinate and support provision for disabled children and those with special educational needs
• Co-ordinate special educational needs for early education within a local area
• Assess quality assurance schemes against agreed criteria
• Establish and sustain relationships with providers of services to children and families
• Co-ordinate and support the revision of policies, procedures and practice for registration and inspection
• Contribute to the enhancement of early education for children
• Research and develop an area of practice
• Provide information about children and families’ services
• Co-ordinate work with families
• Manage multi-agency working arrangements
• Obtain additional finance for the organisation
• Provide leadership in your area of responsibility
• Encourage innovation in your area of responsibility
• Allocate and monitor the progress and quality of work in your area of responsibility
• Ensure health and safety requirements are met in your area of responsibility
• Provide learning opportunities for colleagues
• Manage finance for your area of responsibility
• Contribute to the leadership and management of integrated child care provision
• Safeguard children from harm
• Select, recruit and keep colleagues.