Worksorce developments have led toincreased demand for quality childcare while working parents have become more conscious of thier own parenting skills. Sarah French talks to an entrepreneur who has made childcare training her business.

AFTER taking time off to be with the children during the summer holidays, many parents will admit to being glad to get back to work for some rest.

Boardroom battles are nothing compared with fights across the tea table and office politics look like child's play when you're trying to cut a deal with the kids.

University, post-graduate studies and professional training equip us with the skills we need at work. But when we go home and start parenting - a job which many consider to be the hardest in the world - there's no tutor on hand to guide us.

Childcare is a job that carries massive responsibility but little reward and even less kudos. Yet we expect the highest standards of quality care for our children when we hand them over to daycare.

As a profession, childcare continues to suffer from a poor image, not helped by recent television documentaries. But businesswoman Angela Brown aims to raise standards of professional childcare in the North-East, and to give parents the helping hand that many are desperate for.

Her business - Training In Childcare - offers high quality, flexible tuition to parents and professionals, provided by a team made up of specialists in childcare and playwork. And growing the business from nothing to a £200,000 turnover company has involved educating more than just her students.

"I've been in meetings where people have virtually slid under the table as soon as you mention childcare. Working with children is seen as 'playing with bairns'. You don't have to pass a qualification to have children - everyone thinks anyone can do it.

"Developing the skills to provide high quality care takes many years. You can't take young people from college and just give them those life skills, yet many find themselves in charge. Looking after children is hard work which is only exacerbated if you're understaffed or haven't got good role models to learn from."

Angela herself has notched up more than 20 years in teaching, social work including child protection and psychiatry, and lecturing in early years education and childcare.

Five years ago she decided to join forces with a partner and set up a nanny agency in South Shields. To boost the coffers, Angela began writing tailor-made courses for people who were already qualified in childcare but wanted to gain further skills.

With her partner leaning more towards the nannying side of the business, eventually they decided amicably to go their separate ways.

With her experience, interest and role as North-East representative for Skills Active, the sport, leisure and play part of Sector Skills, Angela realised things were moving towards qualifications-led childcare.

"Government policy is to get people out of poverty by getting them into work and as more people work, there is more demand for childcare," she says.

She identified a gap for high quality childcare training that was flexible enough to be provided at weekends, in the evening and at convenient locations and Training in Childcare was born.

Bite-size workshops are delivered across County Durham, Sunderland and South Tyneside by professionals acting as mentors to parents. Packages are bespoke to meet the individual requirements of schemes like SureStart and Early Years Partnerships.

Some students use the training simply to improve their own parenting skills by learning about social, emotional, physical and intellectual development of children and applying the theory in practical, hands-on activities. Others progress through the different levels and can use their skills in childcare work.

"We're quite happy for people to come in and out and take as much or as little as they need from the workshops," says Angela.

Angela has a team of 12 consultants, made up of university and college lecturers and freelance childcare trainers.

With a full time trainer, Viv Muirhead, a business manager, Karen McNulty, and administration support, the business has grown into a small college, much to Angela's amusement. "I get education letters sent to me addressed to 'The Principal' which always makes me laugh. They usually come when I'm vacuuming the floor."

But whereas colleges can draw on Government money through the Learning and Skills Council, Angela's is a private enterprise and therefore has to stand on its own.

While she admits the childcare training came naturally to her, she's modest about her skills as a businesswoman.

The Entrepreneurs Forum, one of the country's leading mentoring organisations for emerging business people, helped provide the support and advice she needed.

"I've always had the imagination and the vision of where to take the business but getting there is often very different and very difficult. The members of the Forum have all been through it and can give you an outsider's view which is very helpful.

"I find business exciting and scary at the same time. Sometimes the success of it frightens me. I have more sleepless nights now than I ever had in social work."

Angela was brought up Hartlepool. Her parents, Harry and Ruby Marshall, were both district directors of social services in Sunderland, Ultimately, Angela wants the company, which is currently going through Investors in People, to be a social enterprise.

"The business side has been a huge learning curve but it's been governed by my belief that if you never lose sight of why you did it in the first place, which for me was quality for children. Then you can't go wrong," she says.

* Training in Childcare is on 0191-427 4722. For more information about the Entrepreneurs Forum, telephone 0870 850 2233 or visit www.entrepreneursforum.net