signandsmile.co.uk

Hi I'm Laura Farag the owner and Baby Sign Workshop Teacher of Sign and Smile. I wanted to give you some background information on my professional experience and why I decided to set up Sign and Smile.

First and foremost, and probably where I gained most of my experience, I am Mum to a beautiful little preschooler called Samuel. After the birth of my son in 2005, I decided to retrain to work in the childcare sector. I have a years work experience as a volunteer Next-Steps Assistant and volunteer Creche Assistant and have also worked as a volunteer Teaching Assistant for three months. I am a qualified childcare practitioner having completed an NVQ Children's Care, Learning and Development Level 2 certificate in October 2007 and I am also a qualified paediatrics first aider. I am currently studying a level 3 Diploma in Child Psychology by distance learning and I completed an Introduction to British Sign Language on-line course earlier this year. I have also held hosted courses at Cliftonville Children's Centre and taught my own son how to baby sign.

I first found out Baby Signing when my young son joined a local Speech and Language group, as referred to because of his slight delayed speech. I have to admit I was sceptical of the whole concept to begin with but I started implementing some of the signs at home and to my total surprise one day my little boy walked up to me and signed DADDY and BUS. I was amazed, my partner is a Bus Driver and my little boy was telling me his Daddy was at work driving the bus! I was so proud of my beautiful boy and I just couldn't wait to teach him some new signs. So I thoroughly researched the subject both as a Mum and as a Childcare Pracitioner and continued to use more signs with my son at home. I then decided I wanted to start my own baby sign business and I was fortunate enough to meet another Baby Sign Teacher called Katja O'Neill of Signing Babies. Katja provided me with a wealth of knowledge and information and gave me the final confidence boost I needed to set up my own business.