St. Michael's are First Nursery in Devon to Receive Prem Aware Award
We are very excited to announce the team at St. Michael's Nursery, Barnstaple, has received the Prem Aware Award from the Smallest Things Charity. We are only the 2nd Early Years Business in the UK to receive this award, and the first nursery in the South West of England to have received this award this year and the ONLY nursery in Devon ever!l
Sarah Sexon, Nursery Manager explains 'We were inspired to train our team following a visiting speaker to our staff meeting, one of our nursery parents whose own child was born at 27 weeks and their family experiences that followed from birth to joining nursery. She mentioned that we might be interested in building on our knowledge and there followed our whole team completing the amazing course. Each Early Years Practitioner discovered new information from those newly trained in Early Years, to those of us who have been working with young children for 20 years or more. '
The Prem Aware training has had an impact on our entire Early Years team, the content of the course has inspired us all to consider the child's journey from their very first day at nursery to the day they leave to start school. Not only will we be changing our settling in programme and development tracking through the setting for Preemie children, we will also enhance the partnership of families whose child was born before full term. We recognise the importance of celebrating every milestone along the way and how we can support every preemie child to reach their full potential .
We are proud to be an early years setting with a full time SENDCo, Emma, who coordinates with staff, families and outside agencies to envelope each child with the support they need to enjoy and thrive in their nursery experience and into primary school. We are also pleased to collaborate with a North Devon Speech Therapist Lucy, who brings sessions to our nursery, where we offer a quiet space for families to work together to develop their child's communication and language skills.
We also have members of our baby team who have trained to become Building Babies Brains Champions and are here to support and advise families with resources, guidance and information .
We are also excited to announce we will be working closely with SNUG, (Supporting Neonatal Users and Graduates), a South West Charity who all share the same goal; to offer advocacy and wrap-around support to families who have been impacted upon by a difficult pregnancy, birth or neonatal stay. The group work in collaboration with the SCBU unit at North Devon District Hospital and run SNUGBUG get togethers for families https://www.snugonline.org/neonatal-support
We look forward to working with The Smallest Things Charity in the future and welcoming many new families into our setting who can feel confident we genuinely understand and are we are here, ready to care.
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