Annie

My Summary

My Experience

Self-employed
Bath
September 2015 - present
Childminder/ Nanny/ Babysitting
I am currently childminding children aged between 0 to 13 years old on varies days and times to suit parental need, this currently includes school drop of and pick up from St Stephen's School. I offer a fun and safe home environment to teach the children in and help them to meet their individual learning needs. The children are taken on many visits which vary from local parks, food shopping, fidgety feet to Bristol Zoo and aquarium.


Childrens Centre
Bath & North East Somerset Council
September 2016 - Present
Casual Early Years Assistant
My role is to provide support across all of the children’s centres in Bath as and when requested. Currently I have supported the children’s group aged 0-5 years. I have also been asked if I would cover, when needed The Freedom Programme.


R2K
Bath & North East Somerset Council
August 2016 - present
Sessional Worker
This is offering support on day trips to children who are currently in foster care. Through this work I have been offered 1-1 work with children with either behavioural, emotional and developmental difficulties.

Southside,
Twerton, Bath
January 2016 - present
Trustee & Volunteer
I am currently a Trustee (Vice Chair) and volunteer for Southside (my previous employers). I am currently liaising with them with the prospect of setting up, You and Me, Mum, a 10 week programme aimed at mums and children who are survivors of domestic violence. The programme will outline what domestic violence is, how it impacts on them and their children and safety planning and parenting strategies. We hope to run a pilot next February.
I am excited about this venture and look forward to seeing the end result.

Southside
Twerton, Bath
August 2013 – End March 2015
Connecting Families Support Worker

I was employed as a Specialist Family Support Worker and Connecting Families Support Worker (this work was in line with the government agenda and meant the same work but with different paperwork and time scales).

During my time at Southside I worked with many vulnerably families/ hard to reach children. Over this time I continued to develop excellent Listening, communication and inter-personnel skills when dealing with children and clients of varying abilities and needs and professionals. One of my main strengths is building relationships and good rapport with hard to engage parents which I then use to identify the child/ families need and put interventions in place.
With all the families some form of regular meetings would take place. If it was a family open to social care I would attend all case conferences and other multi-agency meetings. When a family was not open to social care and I was the lead professional, I would chair and minute Child in Need meetings or Team Around the Child meetings. This would involve inviting the relevant professionals and working closely with them to pull together a plan for the family/ individual child.

Home visits were a big role. I would visit parents at home and offer a befriending service which allowed them to of load in order to address the issues that needed change. I would either see a parent on their own in the home or take them out of the home and support/ build their confidence in the community. These visit would lead to parent and child activities within or out of the home, such as making pizza’s or going to the local park.

Other responsibilities included keeping accurate up to date written and electoral records (running records, chronology, etc), attending monthly clinical supervision and team meetings, Co Facilitating child domestic violence programme, ensuring safeguarding throughout any meetings with parents and children and when needed making referrals to social care and access (happily) any appropriate training needed/ identified.



Gardeners Lane Children’s Centre
Cheltenham
2011-July 2013
I joined Gardners Lane Children’s Centre as a F Grade Community Family Worker. Within 6 months I was successful in applying for a H Grade (maternity cover) Community Family Worker, when the cover was due to end I was seconded to Hester’s Way/ Rowanfield Children’s Centre at H Grade.

During my time with the children centres I have had children disclose safeguarding issues. An example being during a session a child who had come for contact disclosed she had been physically abused. I spoke with the child allowing her to speak and without asking leading questions. I followed the centre’s Safeguarding policy and procedures

I have also worked with a family on the IF (Inspiring Families) Project, a family of mum, dad and 5 children. I visited the children in either secondary, junior or primary school and spoke to them regularly using different activities and approaches to gain the child’s confidence and ultimately the information I needed. Subsequently I made a referral to Social Care, though unhappy with this the family chose not to have a different community family worker but continued to work with me. I feel this is due to the approach I adopted with them when building a parent/ worker relationship and still allowed me to challenge parenting issues such as poor diet, hygiene and domestic abuse.

At Gardner’s Lane Children’s Centre I ran the young parents drop in- I worked with parents aged 21 and under. It is good to see young parents do make the right choices for the children, but need support in more practical and emotional areas, the control aspect of domestic abuse and the impact this has on mental health is prevalent among the young parents (and other services users) I engaged with. Most parents are easy to work with and when challenged will take support/ advice.

I believe this is due to my approach in how the support/ advice is given to the parents. Due to parent’s young age being told is not the right approach, I find the Solihull approach to be much more beneficial in which you guide them to find the answers themselves. Recently I have seen a rise in 15 year old mum’s to be. This work is very interesting and a lot more demanding given their


very young age. Building confidence and relationships with the parents takes longer, but once built the work needed can begin and interventions put in place.

Within the Young Parents Drop-in I had a volunteer who was a parent at 15. We later began looking at her achieving an NVQ in childcare using her volunteering and building on this. I encouraged parents to mentor new parents to the group. This opens up conversations of Equal Opportunities which I strongly believe in and carry out this practice throughout my position
I thrive on new opportunities and have had several opportunities of setting up new groups across the locality, all of which have successfully taken off. Such as:-
Best Start-
a small 6 week invite only group for children under 6 months, looking at different aspects of child development from weaning, reading and talking to your baby, home safety and oral health.

Gloucester Road Drop-
in- A drop in for vulnerable families local to Gloucester Road School.

HENRY-
This was run at Oakwood Children’s Centre. The pilot has recently finished. I enjoyed delivering this and saw changes in parents in health choices, but also in other aspects of parenting, such as behaviour management, understanding the impact of domestic abuse on the family unit.

One of my more creative achievements has been the fireworks display the centre held to encourage community cohesion. I was the lead co-ordinator. I liaised with event organisers, police and fire service whom attended the event providing assistance and furthering community cohesion. Prior to the event I arranged a competition throughout the targeted groups, pilot two’s, nursery and the local school. I then used the winning entries to design tickets for the event. I also arranged a raffle and approached local stores. Some of the donations made were from Fitness First, Cineworld, local pharmacy, Leisure @ and Argos. I composed all correspondence, carried out a letter drop and risk assessments and collected feed back after.

Other responsibilities include C-card distributor (Condom distribution for young people under 25) and am also a NHS smoke cessation office for the centres across the locality.
Over the years I have gained sound knowledge of the Early Years Foundation Stage and Every Child Matters. I have a passion to delivering service users a range of activities, ensuring variety and all age appropriate / developmental needs are met in accordance with the EYFS. I take much joy in coming up with new ideas and activities, but also understand the need for learning from repetition and strongly encourage parent/ carer’s participation and positive role-modelling. Asides from planning for the groups I have run, I have also played active roles in planning and co-ordinating targeted play schemes and the centre’s recent family learning day for children aged 0-11.

My Qualifications

05/10/2016 You and Me, Mum

25/06/2016 Level 3 Award in Paediatric First Aid

11/06/2016 Pacey Personal Development course, delivering the EYFS

11/06/2016 College of Policing, Channel General Awareness Module

06/06/2016 Home Office, Female Genital Mutilation: Recognising and Preventing FGM V1.3

16/05/2016 Pacey, Expectations of Behaviour

03/05/2016 Bath and North East Somerset Local Safeguarding Children Board, Foundation Child Protection

21/04/2016 City and Guilds Accredited, Level 2 -Food Safety and Hygiene for Catering

05/06/2014 Analysis & Outcome Focused Planning training

2013 CAF (Common Assessment Training)
2013 Therapeutic Play Skills
2013 Incredible Years

2012 HENRY (Health, Exercise, nutrition for the really young)

2011 Early reflexes and Brain Gym for the early years

2011 Gloucestershire Total Communication

2008 CACHE Level 3 NVQ In children's Care, Learning and Development

My Availability

I can be very flexible to meet your needs, please just ask.

My Fees

• Childminding from £7.50 per hour
• Babysitting from £15.00 per hour

8:30am- 6pm £7.50 per hour - minimum 8hours (includes all meals and outings)

£10.00 per hour - if less than 8 hours per day (includes all meals and outings)

9pm onwards £10

Overnight care £70 per night, £40 per sibling