The Nursery World Award for Outstanding Contribution to the sector, sponsored by Parenta, goes to Gill Haynes, chief executive of the National Childminding Association.
Gill joined the NCMA as chief executive in 1993 and, for the past 12 years, has worked tirelessly to raise the profile of childminders and other early years workers. In June 2000, Gill was awarded the OBE for her 'services to childminding'.
Her greatest achievement has been to ensure that home-based childcare is seen as a professional and quality childcare option that is now an integral part of the Government's Ten Year Childcare Strategy.
This 'professionalisation' of childminding will remain Gill's legacy to the NCMA and the childcare sector when she steps down from her role as chief executive later this year. Gill has overseen a massive expansion of the NCMA in recent years. Membership has risen to 50,000 and its income has rocketed to 14.6m. Today, the NCMA employs over 400 staff and has more than 1,000 volunteer groups.
NCMA has always supported childminders to deliver quality childcare, but since Gill arrived in 1993 this support has become a broader programme of training and continuous professional development. Her achievements have included:
* Working with the Government to establish the National Standards for Under Eights Day Care and Childminding in England that all childminders are now required to meet
* Successfully campaigning in 1993 to remove anomalies from the standards that allowed childminders to smack children with parents' permission and smoke in front of them.
* Gaining Government funding for start-up grants for new childminders and establishing the Support Childminder project
* Developing the Children Come First quality assurance scheme for childminding networks in partnership with Ofsted, the DfES and the National Portage Association
* Developing the NCMA's Quality First scheme, approved by Investors in Children
* Developing specialist qualifications in partnership with CACHE to recognise the unique working environment of home-based childcare Alongside her role as NCMA chief executive, Gill has held a series of other positions within the education and childcare sector. She was chair of CACHE from 1995-2001 and chair of the UK Council of the Early Years NTO from 1998-2001. In 2003, Gill was awarded an MA in post-16 education and training from Sheffield University.
She was appointed the independent chair of the New Deal for Communities Programme in south London in 1993 and became a board member of the Children's Workforce Development Council this year.
Gill said she was honoured to receive the award. 'Working for the NCMA has been a really exciting and rewarding job. Registered childminders have come to recognise themselves as professionals, as have policymakers and the rest of the childcare sector.
'Childminders have embraced all the initiatives relating to training, networks and quality assurance. I am confident they will play a vital role in the new agenda of children's centres and extended schools.
'I am also sure that the NCMA will go from strength to strength. It will be taking on a whole new set of initiatives that will cement its tradition as an organisation right at the heart of childcare policy.'
Since 1997, the NCMA has worked closely with the Government to ensure high-quality, flexible, accessible, inclusive and affordable home-based childcare is available to children and families in more and more communities. NCMA now works with almost every local authority delivering training and quality assurance programmes and establishing childminding networks.
