Baby Room Project
In my working life and as a parent I have spent many hours visiting local authority, private, voluntary and independent pre-school settings. During this time I have often wondered about what babies make of it all? Well now, thanks to the hard work of a number of professionals, practitioners and parents in Northamptonshire have a greater understanding of what it is a baby needs and the effects of getting or not getting those needs met. While employed by Northamptonshire County Council I was lucky enough to work alongside Veronica Lawrence (Senior Specialist Educational Psychologist-Early Years), Claire Stephenson (Early Years Advisor), Sharon Ryan (Early Years Advisor) and Donna Luck (Senior Lecturer in Early Years Education, University of Northampton) – four individuals who, like myself, marvel in the wonder of babies and feel passionately about developing greater understanding of what adults can do to help babies feel safe, stimulated and celebrated!
The Northamptonshire Baby Room Project* was designed to share with all adults who care for babies, exactly what babies can do and how to enhance a baby’s early everyday experiences. I feel really excited about being able to offer this training to both settings and parents as the ethos fits beautifully with that of the Protective Behaviours process and that of Hertfordshire’s My Baby’s Brain 5 to Thrive initiative. With that in mind I have also developed a 4 session course for parents called ‘Baby It’s You & Me’ that brings babies and their parents together to learn from each other, develop confidence and self-esteem and celebrate just how wonderful babies and their carers are. (For further information on this please see my Baby It’s You & Me post).
More general information may be found at The Northamptonshire Baby Room Project site
*(copyright Northamptonshire County Council)