About The GBNFC Group – Birmingham
My Name is Louise Smith. I am the GBNFC Group Manager, I oversee all the provision for GBNFC, have been with the organisation since 2005. My passion is for all children to be able to have access to opportunities for them to become independent lifelong learners. Our settings through their environments and their invitation to play, encourage children to use their own imagination, curiosity and exploratory skills to engage them in their own learning for life. We believe parents are the first educators for children, therefore we provide a number of opportunities and services for parents to be part of their children early years’ journey while they are with us, as well as all other aspects of parenting, making sure your child gets the best start in life.
I want to tell you a little about the different types of provisions and service that we offer for families.
GBNFC Group is made up of three Early Years Provision across the Billesley and Highters Heath Wards of Birmingham and a Children’s Centre that provides services relating to Family Support, Parent and Children Groups that support the development of children, across the Selly Oak District.
Where it all began
The Grendon and Billesley Nursery and Family Centre became the first of our provision that was funded through the Neighbour Nursery Initiative as a non-profit community business in 2004. The organisation is managed by a voluntary management board made up of local community members and parents with children attending the provision.
From there we opened our term time only pre-school provision based at Hollywood Primary school in 2007. Shortly afterwards we were granted Children’s Centre status in 2009 to deliver service for families across the Billesley ward.
In 2016 , GBNFC at The Chinnbrook Centre formerly known as Chinnbrook Family and Community Project was opened. The provision was re modelled on the ethos and environments of our other provisions and offered high quality affordable care and education for 2 – 5 years olds.
Our Ethos has always been to provide high quality, low cost child care and education for the local community and to support parents returning to work or education. In addition, having the resources to support families that may need a little help or support within the family support remit.
Gaining the Children’s Centre status really allowed us to have a skilled team that could deliver services across our allocated area for our community and surrounding areas, where they could access the support they needed to provide the opportunity to thrive as a family, gaining and developing the skills to support the development of their children.
In 2017 under the new BFS (Birmingham Forward Steps) we were asked to provide the Children’s Centre service under a Barnardos sub contract. Our Children’s Centre now covers the whole of the Selly Oak District with up to 9,000 children. Our team is based at our GBNFC at The Chinnbrook Centre but deliver a range of services such as parenting groups, play and stay sessions, family support, health services, volunteering and community support and training and education guidance and training across this area.
