Babysitters Train to Become Certified Childcare Providers

A four-week childcare training is ongoing at the Belize Training and Employment Centre at the ITVET compound in Belize City. Some eleven participants, all from the childcare sector—primarily pop-up babysitters— are taking a course on a very important issue. That is to take care of young children and become certified childcare providers. Trainees are receiving technical support and the knowhow on how to work with young children, including the basics in case of emergencies. Training Facilitator at BTEC, Angelita Staine says that the programme, which includes internship, is in its third week.

Angelita Staine

Angelita Staine, Training Facilitator, BTEC

“For the first week just like all our other trainings, we do soft skills. The second week we do customer service because it is important that whichever field that they go into it is important that they have a background in customer service. And the third week, which we are doing, we are in the technical portion of the childcare training where we’ve had various facilitators come in and talk to them about how best to deal with children and also we have them doing CPR and first aid trainings because that is important for them if an emergency occurs, they will be able to do deal with it on their own while help is one the way. In the fourth week they do an internship which gives them a hands-on aspect of the training. We teach them everything here and when they go out there, they get a first-hand ability how to work with children. So if anybody in the public is looking for a childcare provider, they can definitely contact us at BTEC and we have certified childcare providers here at BTEC.”