GRoW are delighted to announce that Rosemarie Alphonse has joined us as our new Parental Employment Programme Manager. Rosemarie has 30 years experience of working in Early Years and managing Childrens Centres and Nurseries, specialising in early support and childcare and is a wonderful addition to our team.
Rosemarie said “My background involved running a locality of Childrens Centres and I have lots of experience and knowledge in family support. I am really excited about joining the GRoW Team and looking forward to being able to support the parents on the programme.
My role will be two-fold – working on the Mayor’s Office Parental Employment Network will see me working closely with employers to encourage them to look at flexible and hybrid working with a view to supporting women back to work and in higher paid roles. I will be contacting small and medium sized businesses to support them to develop family-friendly policies and to improve their recruitment processes to include more flexible and part-time working. This will involve changing the perceptions around part-time work and dispelling the myth that everyone has to work 9-5. I will be trying to encourage them to think outside of the box in order to get the right person for the job.
The second part of my job will be to provide knowledge and support around Childcare for parents on the GRoW Programme. This means helping parents to find and pay for suitable childcare themselves and also to help people who are thinking about becoming a Childminder or if they want to work with children in a daycare nursery, training for a childcare qualification and how they can progress to become a room leader/ supervisor/ manager. I have lots of experience in this area and understand the requirements needed to upskill people, providing relevant information and sharing good practice.
I was lucky enough to attend the Women’s Health, Safety and Wellbeing Fayre at Botwell Church in Hillingdon yesterday where GRoW were exhibiting on a stand. It was such a fantastic event offering women advice and guidance on issues such as menopause, employability and childcare. We were approached by a lady who was interested in setting up her own Nursery and it was great to see how I could help be part of the team to support her. Sonia referred her on to our GRoW Your Own Business programme where she will learn about how to set up and run her own business and after that I will be able to work with her to to assist her starting up her Nursery, giving her bespoke one to one specialist support.
I am really looking forward to working with everyone at GRoW and getting to know you all. If you need any advice around Childcare please do get in touch at rosemarie.alphonse@belinagrow.co.uk