About

About us

First Steps seeks ‘To make a positive and meaningful impact for children, families and community, through excellent childcare, staffing and support services. Children are at the heart of all we do.’

Our staffing services provide quality workers in services run by children’s centres and others, for children aged under 5 and their families, for schools and other organsiations. Our aim is that these staff add value to the vital work undertaken by children’s centres, schools and other organisations through our staffing solutions service.

Our footprints@ childcare settings place child and family at the heart of all they do. We currently operate three footprints@ nurseries, in Netherton, Ainsdale and Hatton Hill in Litherland, and Kings Kids After School Club in Ainsdale.

We strive to provide a quality, competitive service which meets the needs of centres and others and work within the Early Years Stage Foundation.

We are committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity organisation. We offer our services without regard to race, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, or age.

We also provide programme management, and consultancy, learning and other associated services.

Mission, Vision and Values

At First Steps, our mission, vision and values are the core aspect of what drives our work and our service delivery

Mission Statement

To make a positive and meaningful impact for children, families and community, through excellent childcare, staffing and support services. Children are at heart of all we do.

Our vision and our four values – Nurture, Community, Secure and Inspire – are set out in full on our Vision and Values page.

Who Runs First Steps Enterprise?

The First Steps Team - including office staff and our footprints@ childcare teams

Ian is the Managing Director of First Steps Enterprise.  He has worked for providers of childcare services for over twenty years. As Managing Director of First Steps, he has seen it successful grow over its ten years of operation, supplying children and families staffing services and three childcare settings across Merseyside. He works closely with a number of services in Sefton and Liverpool. Ian is the nominated person for our three Ofsted-registered services in Netherton, Hatton Hill (Litherland) and Kings Kids (Ainsdale) on both the Early Years and Childcare Registers.  He is also the organisation’s Designated Senior Safeguarding Officer.

Sarah is the Deputy Manager of First Steps Enterprise, and oversees quality assurance of our footprints@ nursery and childcare provision.  She is a qualified Early Years professional. She has worked in children’s centres for over four years. As a School Readiness Worker, Sarah has supported vulnerable families, worked in partnership with other professionals, and has acted as lead practitioner on team around the family (TAF) cases for families on the threshold of social care. Sarah has developed and delivered universal and targeted groups that promote all areas of the EYFS, empowering families in supporting and understanding the early learning goals for their children and in being ‘school ready’.  She played a key role in the development and running of two nursery settings that support vulnerable children on the 2-year-old offer. Sarah has also worked in a local primary school as a Support Advisor for parents.

Jennifer  is the other director of First Steps Enterprise alongside Ian and is our Crèche Co-ordinator.  She has taught in primary schools for over eighteen years. Jennifer also spent five years working for a community organisation in an outreach and school assembly role, working with children up to the age of 11 and their families.

Nataliia is our Finance Officer with over 15 years experience in finance.  She has worked in a variety of medium and large organisations in Ukraine, providing finance services to them.  Nataliia undertakes all the finance functions of the company.

Loukia is our Recruitment and Human Resources Officer.  Loukia has experience working in education, health services and providing support to people at university seeking work.  Loukia interviews many of our candidates and prepares them for interview.  She also assists those who are economically inactive in their journey towards finding employment across all sectors.

Malai is our Recruitment Consultant for Steps Ahead Talent, our executive recruitment service for London and the South East. She specialises in management, compliance, senior appointments and office support roles. Malai brings over ten years’ experience across recruitment, HR and business operations, including five years in HR and recruitment for a Surrey GP federation, where she managed DBS, right-to-work and onboarding checks for clinical and non-clinical staff, and senior EMEA recruitment coordination at F5 Networks. For more about Steps Ahead Talent, please go to steps-ahead-talent.co.uk.