Giggles and Wiggles Childcare
Award - £25,000.50
Council Area – Derry and Strabane
Giggles and Wiggles is a Daycare provider based in Strabane. Their Pathway Fund Grant is used to support 46 Daycare places and particularly their children that have additional needs. As well as directly supporting the children the Giggles and Wiggles leadership have invested heavily in the training and development of their staff. They appreciate the importance of staff development in continuous improvement and the benefits that that can have in producing better outcomes for children. They have used Pathway Fund monies to support staff training in:
Eager and Able to Learn
Media Initiative: Respecting Difference
Caring Together training
Reggio Inspired Support programme
Each of these training programmes have added to the staff’s ability to provide inspirational developmentally appropriate education for young children. They have also contributed to the skills, knowledge and confidence of the staff themselves. Staff have also used training provided free by the Pathway Fund as part of its Governance support to upskills staff as illustrated by the example below.
The Baby Room leader stepped up this year to a Senior Supervisor and took on the role as person in charge when the Manager was not on site. This new role included the Supervisor to take on the responsibility of supervisions and appraisals. Through the governance and leadership training programme the staff member attended Supporting your Staff Training, which covered this area. The training helped the staff member to recognise the importance and value, of good induction, supervision and appraisal processes for staff members in line with Minimum Standard requirements. This training gave the staff member more confidence and self-assurance to take on this new role. The information provided by the training provided more knowledge and understanding. Having the power point presentation and additional resources also provided reference materials for the staff member to return to when they needed to.
