Sonia Mainstone-Cotton and Jamel Carly Campbell on Positive Relationships in the Early Years

Sonia Mainstone-Cotton has worked with young children for 30 years, currently as a freelance nurture consultant working with 4 yr olds with social, emotional and mental health needs, as well as delivering training and writing lots of books and articles!

Jamel Carly Campbell is an Early Year Educator and Early Years Consultant and has been in the industry for over 18 years. He has also worked in youth clubs, schools, been a mentor to many and supported children with SEND and is one of the UK’s Men in the Early Years ambassadors.

Together, they have written a new book called Building Positive Relationships in the Early Years: Conversations to Empower Children, Professionals, Families and Communities as part of the Little Minds Matter series of books by Routledge.

In this interview, Sonia and Jamel explain why presenting the content through a conversation was beneficial for explaining positive relationships, especially with their own different backgrounds, experiences and working life. We discuss many practical ways to build connections, including the advantages of home visits, and also consider cases where parents and carers may have had negative experiences of school and so are less willing to engage or sustain relationships with settings. The concept of building a relationship with the community – whether that is an inner city one or a rural population – comes up several times.

Both Sonia and Jamel have heart-warming and endearing anecdotes from their time in practice, making this both an inspirational and educational session.

Links:

Sonia and Jamel’s book: https://amzn.to/3dCYSBM or https://www.routledge.com/Building-Positive-Relationships-in-the-Early-Years-Conversations-to-Empower/Campbell-Mainstone-Cotton/p/book/9781032062464#

Find out more about Jamel here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamel-c-campbell-69158986/

Sonia’s website is here: https://www.soniamainstone-cotton.com/