A new course has enabled six local participants to gain extra skills in babysitting and caring for young children.
The course, organised by the Childers Neighbourhood Centre through the State Government's Thriving Queensland Communities Grant, ran on Mondays and Tuesdays for two weeks over the school holidays.
“The aim of the course was to give young people skills and knowledge of looking after young people,” community development officer Debra Murphy said.
“A lot of older teenagers are often responsible for looking after younger siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews or the neighbour's kids.
“The students enjoyed themselves, learning about caring for their siblings including how to babysit for other parents as well.”
Debra said the course included first aid, ideas for playing with children from different ages, guiding and disciplining children’s behavior, ways to cope and reduce stress and how to prepare a healthy, balanced lunch boxes for the kids plus much more.
“They went onto learn about child development, how to keep children safe inside and outside the house, did some practical things like making resources, playdough and goop,” Debra said.
“We looked at healthy food options as well as visit to the local child care centre to interact with young children there.”
Students were given plenty of resources to take home including guides for caring for children, fact sheets of children’s development and plenty recipes.
The course concluded with subway lunch, celebratory cupcakes and a certificate for each one of the participants to take home along with a backpack filled with resources and activities for the young ones.
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