Happy New Year everyone, and welcome to our new followers. We thought it might be useful to say hello and for each of us to share a resource we use regularly and find helpful. So here is our first instalment.

I’m Jo, my day job is ‘Transitions Co-ordinator’, I’m a Seasons for Growth Trainer and Companion and I am a member of the CLB group here in Highland. In real life, I have just returned to work after a year off on Maternity Leave with my very fun and increasingly mischievous daughter!

Ordinarily, I think had I been asked what my go to resource was in terms of change and loss I might have talked about Seasons or the CBUK website. However, after welcoming Eva to the world 11 months ago, and living the last 10 months in a pandemic, my resource has to be bumps to bairns.

Not necessarily what jumps to mind when you think of change and loss?

Bumps to bairns is full of evidence based information and guidance about our little people, from baby to 5 years old. The site’s tagline sums it up ‘Early help for Highland children’.

So why is this my favourite resource, and what has it got to do with the subject of this website?

Well, I’m sure we can all agree that it has been a funny old year. Nothing has been certain; apart from change! I can’t tell you how many times my Mum friends have expressed guilt and fear that they aren’t doing enough. Bumps to bairns is a great place to visit if you have questions, if you want some information and so importantly right now; for some ideas of what to do with your children while we are staying at home.

The advice I needed to hear this week was this:

“Play and talk is all you need

What really matters for young children? It is “just” time to play and to chat. If you do things that everyone enjoys and can chatter about, then learning is automatically going to happen. It just will.”

Thank you to James and the team behind bumps to bairns, your website has been so helpful to me in the transition to becoming a parent, being a parent in lockdown and in doing so it has helped me to be more accepting of the changes that are occurring around us daily.