Carving your future with Giraffe Childcare…

Being part of our future

OUR team are an essential part of our future and success. They are what makes us Giraffe. Ensuring that our teams experience a nurturing, caring environment allows them to develop and grow, as our future leaders. This is something that is truly felt at Giraffe.

Today, over 90% of our centre management team began their careers as care staff. Their hands on experience and knowledge provides our younger team members mentorship and development opportunities.

It gives them guidance to develop and hone their skills. Offer advise on best practice approaches and also giving them opportunities to becoming their best.

At Giraffe it is important to us to continue this path which is why our talent management, staff development and mentorship is core to our care team’s future. Others have developed their careers within the organisation into other central support roles including recruitment, HR, Health and Safety and Area Support Directors.

Meet Kira from Giraffe Childcare, this is her story…

Kira, who joined Giraffe Childcare in 2020 as a student childcare practitioner while studying in Inchicore College today, is a Centre Supervisor in Giraffe Childcare IFSC. Here is her story on how she has quickly developed her childcare career and is on a path that will bring about further development opportunities.

“I began my Childcare career in 2020 when I returned to college as a mature student. I had previously studied Industrial and Environmental Physics but decided that this was not for me. Taking a step back I reviewed what I really wanted to do.

"I always loved working with children. I have a bubbly personality and have always dreamed at working as an Early Years Practitioner. In 2020 I applied to do my QQI Level 5 in Childcare with Inchicore College. I was thrilled!

"As part of my course, we had to complete a module of work experience. As I am from Maynooth I applied to do my work experience in Giraffe Celbridge. This was a wonderful experience I was instantly made feel like one of the team.

"In the care room I had a mentor who guided me through best practice approaches, how to plan, develop and implement activities for the children, behaviour management, curriculum, encouraging child development. It was fantastic.

"Upon completion of my course, I was asked if I would like to officially join the Giraffe Team as a Childcare Practitioner in Giraffe IFSC. I transferred to Giraffe IFSC and in February 2022 I was promoted to the role of Centre Supervisor. This was fantastic, to be promoted in less than a year of joining the team.

"I continue to receive mentorship from the centre management team, ongoing training and development but also I am growing my own skills as I also provide mentorship to other team members. "

Caring right now

OUR staff are our future but in today’s world it is important to also consider and recognise the here and now.

Acknowledging our employees wellbeing is vital. Ensuring that they have sustainable and financially viable careers is important.

We have developed staff wellbeing into our ongoing training programme and celebrate staff wellbeing, appreciation and acknowledging the value of time off such as extended annual leave days. We also, believe in the value of celebrating the milestone experiences of our team members such as birthdays, weddings, engagements, graduations.

Being my best at Giraffe

AT Giraffe we recongise that being my best allows our team to bring passion, love and the ability to create a world of exciting learning opportunities for young children. To understand this we ask our team daily what do the children in our care expect to see and experience and how will I as a childcare practitioner deliver this. We do this by acknowledging each child individually and this unique value follows through for each of our team members. This is also seen across each of our centres. The personalities of the team and the children is very often reflected in the activities, artwork and culture of our centre. For someone starting their career in childcare this provides them growth, be recognised as an individual to carve out the childcare career that they want with the guidance and security of an experience team with the resources to support them.

Who we are

GIRAFFE Childcare was founded over 20 years ago and is one of Ireland's most successful multi-award winning childcare providers. Today, Giraffe Childcare, are part of the larger Busy Bees family and currently has 22 locations throughout Dublin, Meath and Kildare as it expands its locations later this year with the arrival of Giraffe Shackleton in Lucan.