Last updated at 13:41, Monday, 07 September 2009

A MUM is taking a hands-on approach to parenting by launching a toddler group.

Tracy Hillman will be running the group at St Paul’s Church scout hall in Barrow every Tuesday starting tomorrow.

The group will welcome mums, dads, carers and grandparents bringing children up to four years old.

Mrs Hillman, a primary school teacher and mother-of-three, will be taking her 20-month-old daughter Faye along with her.

She decided to run the group while settling back into supply teaching following Faye’s birth.

She said: “I wanted to do something useful with my time and I’d been to a couple of classes in town and felt it was something I could be quite good at so I decided to give it a go.”

No profit will be made from the classes.

The £1.50 charge is to be spent on hall rental, art activities, tea, coffee and snacks.

As well as providing a useful outlet for Mrs Hillman’s spare time, it will encourage new mothers and carers to get out and about.

She said: “Often new mothers can end up isolated so it gives them the chance to socialise.

“Sometimes they can even live around the corner from other new mums and not know it so it gives them a chance to meet new people who can end up being lifelong friends.”

Helping Mrs Hillman run the group is a friend she met when her eldest daughter, Holly, 14, was a toddler.

Mrs Hillman is also grateful to Freecycle, as well as Furness General Hospital’s Hospitots, who have donated toys to the toddler group.

The group will meet at the scout hall in Wheatclose Road, Barrow, from 9.30 to 11.30am every Tuesday.

Contact Mrs Hillman on 01229 829063 for more information.

First published at 13:40, Monday, 07 September 2009
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk