By Dr Sarah Alexander
© ChildForum
It is usual to conduct a formal interview with potential job applicants and to cover skills, experience and knowledge during the interview. This ‘technical’ interview is important to ensure that the applicant has the skills, competencies and knowledge to meet the job description and person specifications.
For positions that involve contact with young children a ‘values-based’ interview is important alongside the technical questions.
A values based interview allows for the applicant’s values, motives, attitudes and behaviours to be assessed. Importantly, to help to safeguard children, values-based interviewing involves asking specific questions at the interview to examine attitudes towards children.
If attitudes are not examined prior to appointment there is a greater risk of an inappropriate appointment leading to damage to children, parent complaints, diversion of resources and time into dealing with it (e.g. through performance issues and possible disciplinary action), and potential disruption in staff teams and reducing the overall effectiveness of the team.
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