A young Midlands mum – twice made redundant- has set up her own specialist company to help meet booming demand for quality affordable childcare in the region.
And the new business – Safehands Network Ltd is already so successful after just four months, that Zoe already has more than 30 carers on her books and has already established a growing reputation for providing baby-sitting services for big hotel groups and even special crèches for weddings and corporate events.
“The word is getting out that we are a quality care provider and passionate about what we do”, said Zoe, who has a one year old son Cameron.” Everyone knows the importance of looking after children properly and there is nothing more precious in our lives than our children. But working parents, including me, know the stresses and strains of trying to juggle their lives to fit everything in.”
Zoe, was made redundant from her car sales job with Ford, and had previously lost her job with a local engineering company, when she and partner Wayne decided she should set up her own business.
“I wanted some flexibility to be able to look after Cameron” said Zoe.” And I came across Safehands while researching on the Internet.”
The Lancashire based company is the UK leader in childcare offering everything from hotel baby sitting services to out of school care, holiday clubs and domiciliary care.
Covering the whole of Coventry and Leicester, Zoe is attracting customers including, night shift workers, nurses, and single parents and has also set her sights on Birmingham where she believes there is an increasing demand for proper regulated and supervised childcare facilities.
“I am a very hands on person” said Zoe, “I am proud of every member of my team and they wont ever find me just sitting behind desk.”
All Safehands staff are security vetted and checked with the CriminalRecords Bureau and Zoe is now on the look out for even more staff,
“I have just done a wedding fair at the Belfry and we provide proper supervised crèches for weddings which have really taken off. I think it’s a new thing which people will want more and more, somewhere safe where the youngsters can be entertained and supervised during the wedding celebrations.”
She also supplied a crèche recently at the Hinkley Island Hotel for a major charity event and has already been approached to provide similar crèche facilities at a VIP wedding in the Midlands next year.
Although currently operating from her home in Brownshill Green Road, Coventry, Zoe is planning to move into business premises in the area shortly.
Editors Update 15th January 2018
Since publishing this article in 2006 child care franchises have soared. Children related franchises now cover many sectors including creche and child care, sports, health & fitness and even leisure such as go kart franchises, soccer, rubgy.
The growth of women so called mumpreneurs running local franchises or franchising businesses has also grown and an organisation called Encourgaging Women Into Franchising ( EWIF ) has also been established to help promote a better gender balance with franchising generally