A local businessowner is encouraging parents to make time for themselves this Valentine's weekend with the help of her company's babysitting service.

Keeley Black, from Bestwood Village, just outside Hucknall, founded SafeCircle Sitters in 2014.

This was after working for a childcare agency for a decade and realising not enough was being done to regularly check babysitters they were employing.

The idea behind SafeCircle is that they take responsibility for the safe recruitment of their sitters through their unique 12 point Assurance Framework.

With so much time dedicated to their children, many parents either don't or rarely go out and make time for themselves as a couple. It's important that parents take time out but if they don't have family or friends in a position to babysit, they'll need to turn to a babysitter.

However, as babysitting as an industry is unregulated, finding somebody qualified and verified to look after children alone in the home can be a difficult task.

SafeCircle connects busy parents to local professional childcarers with the necessary, regulation-level checks to provide peace of mind for parents to relax whilst away from their children.

As parenting can be stressful, it's important that parents take time out from being mum and dad and to rekindle some of the moments they had as a couple before they had children, says Ms Black.

"Parents have got one of the hardest jobs on the planet. Between taxiing the children around, food fights at the dinner table and 'poonamis' just before leaving the house, it's easy for parents to forget that they are still the same people as they were before their children entered the world and that it's important for them to make time for themselves as well. Taking a break can do them a world of good."

"SafeCircle was set up to give busy parents the confidence to go out by connecting them with highly qualified professionals, backed by a service with the experience to handle any situation.

"We deem a suitable individual for home childcare to be one with the necessary qualifications, police checks, first aid, references and character assessment to meet the criteria of most other regulated sectors of childcare. We settle for nothing less."

The Lloyd family of Nottingham has been using SafeCircle since 2019 and have gone on to enjoy several nights out.

"I feel so fortunate that I have Safe Circle Sitters in my local area.

"I was very nervous about taking the plunge to leave my child with a babysitter and go out for even a few hours.

"I just think that the whole offering is fantastic and I would say to anyone who is nervous about leaving their child/ren to give them a try and see what you think as you have nothing to lose and everything to gain."

SafeCircle Sitters provides parents with a personalised matching service to help them find a qualified and regulated babysitter. For an Expert Consultation and to find out more about their team click here.