Lorraine Duncan, our senior Childminding Development Officer with SCMA, has worked in Aberdeen City for the past seven years. Her role is funded by Aberdeen City Council and provides a key collaborative link in delivering a wide range of support to professional childminders including one-to-one support, providing training and events, and is a very familiar face to many childminders in the area.
She’s been especially busy recently and so has written a short BLOG to help shine a light on all of the recent activity that she’s collaborating on to help and support childminders in Aberdeen City….
My role as Senior Childminding Development Officer, SCMA
Although I work for SCMA, my role is fairly unusual in that I am also very much part of Aberdeen City Council Early Years team and until the pandemic, I was based at the Council’s Marischal College along with the rest of the Early Years team. I now mostly work from home, but my role also takes me out and about all the time. Working alongside the Early Years Team has fostered a strong network of support and collaborative working with various organisations throughout Aberdeen City.
This really helped me adapt and respond quickly to supporting childminders at the very start of the pandemic, placing over 40 children of key workers with childminders in just two weeks. It was a very challenging time, but knowing I was helping to provide much-needed support for childminders and families in the area during such an unsettling and difficult period was so important to me.
Chatty Café for Childminders
Partnering with Danestone Community Centre, I’ve recently helped to secure funding from the
ACVO Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund to set up a ‘Chatty Café’ for childminders to help alleviate the isolation felt by many childminders following the pandemic. This ACVO (Aberdeen Council of Voluntary Organisations) fund provides grants to grassroots community groups and organisations across Scotland in response to the mental health and wellbeing need arising from the pandemic.
The Chatty Café will run once a month and provide an informal, fun space for childminders to meet up with each other for a coffee and catch-up and to share stories and advice. It’s also an opportunity for childminders to speak to me on a one-to-one basis and to receive further help and support with any issues they may be experiencing regarding childminding.
Childminders are typically lone-workers, and they often say to me they feel that they really benefit from being able to speak to others in the same situation and running their own childminding business locally. Coming along to the Chatty Café is a great way to feel part of a wider team – it’s good to talk!
ACVO came to a recent Chatty Café session to film childminders talking about the support provided and a short video is available to
WATCH HERE. Childminders can also take their ‘mindees’ along to the Chatty Café and it’s a great opportunity for them to interact and play together too!
I’ve been invited to an ACVO exhibition in mid-November at the Arcade Gallery in Aberdeen. The Chatty Café project will be part of the exhibition which showcases the work of ACVO and the difference that funding has made to the initiatives which were successful in receiving funding from its Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund. This is an exciting opportunity to talk about the Chatty Café and spread the word about the support that it can help provide for local childminders. The
Chatty Café video will be played at the exhibition and that’s really exciting too!
Boosting the Childminding Workforce in Aberdeen City
Part of my role, along with my colleague Claire Shepherd - who is also a SCMA Childminding Development Officer for Aberdeen City - is to help expand the childminding workforce in Aberdeen City. This is important as creating new professional childminding businesses will help to increase the availability of this high-quality, flexible form of childcare for families in Aberdeen City.
Recently, I’ve been working alongside Claire to support new childminders in the area through registration and since April this year, there have been 10 new recruits throughout areas such as Bridge of Don, Cove, Garthdee, Sheddocksley and Mastrick. These new childminders are going to be such a great additional asset for children and families in these areas and Claire and I are so delighted that new childminders have taken the leap into an exciting and rewarding career!
Aberdeen City Council Star Awards
I was delighted to attend the Aberdeen City Council Star Awards recently to pick up a ‘Green Space and Community Projects’ award for a collaboration on a project with Steven Shaw, the council’s Environmental Manager and Dawn Trykowski, the Locality Lead at Aberdeen City Council. The EcoCity Awards recognise and reward local people for their efforts to make Aberdeen a more sustainable city. The team and I were invited along to the ceremony to collect an award in recognition of the project
We worked collaboratively to encourage more childminders to explore the outdoors with their mindees - even providing 2000 free bulbs to childminders In Aberdeen City to plant in their own gardens, window boxes, in parks and green spaces when out and about with their mindees. The children were named ‘green ambassadors’ and received certificates for taking part in the initiative, which also included litter picking activities in parks and green spaces.
The project started earlier this year and I’m continuing to work closely with Steven and the team at the Council on lots more up-coming opportunities which highlight the benefits of outdoor play and learning and which encourage even more childminders to get involved. The award ceremony itself was a lovely evening and it was great to be there with the team and being recognised for helping to support childminders in the area.
SCMA is dedicated to supporting all aspects of childminding and our team are here to help childminders provide the best service they can for children and their families. We can provide support to anyone wanting to become a childminder every step of the way from the moment you decide to join the profession and throughout your career.
I would encourage anyone thinking of becoming a childminder in the Aberdeen City area to get in touch with myself or Claire Shepherd to find out more, we’d be delighted to have a chat and see how we can help those interested to take that step. We’re also always delighted to speak to parents who may be thinking of engaging a childminder to care for their child but who may need to find out more about the benefits of childminding.
Loraine Duncan | Aberdeen City Senior Childminding Development Officer (
01224 697819)
Claire Shepherd | Aberdeen City Childminding Development Officer (
01330 860201)