Near tragedy, led to a bright young girl saving her mothers life, and sparking the idea for a new business! Joanne was saved by her young daughter acting out a role play call to 999, whilst her mother was having a severe allergic reaction. Now Joanne creates educational safety learning books for kids.
Outline your business and entrepreneurial skills, including your relative achievements to date in running a business:
My wife Jo is a Police Officer by day and an author of children’s safety education books by night! Our daughter Isabelle called an ambulance for my wife when she was suffering from a severe life threatening allergic reaction. Whilst Isabelle was taught her name and address from a young age, she also learnt (although not taught deliberately but learnt through role play) how to make an emergency call. This helped save my wife’s life. Whilst this hit the national news Jo was amazed at the number of people who thought our child was a genius! She had simply learnt through repetition and play – any child could achieve this. Jo took it upon herself to try and get a message out to parents of young children that they too may suddenly fall ill or have an accident within the home and have only their young children to help. It is a vital life skill that all children should learn. Jo subsequently wrote a book teaching children just that. The story book teaches children how (and maybe more importantly when/when not too! ) to make a 999 call. This book has been very successful, enough for her Publisher to adapt this version for US children too. As Jo is a serving Police Officer she recognises the various dangers children are faced with, and the difficulties that parents have trying to teach children various safety issues. As such Jo has written further unpublished books covering topics from stranger dangers, road safety, water safety, seat belts in cars, internet safety, to railway line hazards. These books are also due to be published also. The first book has also helped raise money for a charity that helps women and children in crisis. It is hoped the sequels in the series will also raise money for other charities too whilst teaching children life saving skills.
Why do you have the ability to be an inspiring role model? Provide examples to illustrate:
As already mentioned my wife is a serving police officer for Hampshire Constabulary. She works in a very pressurised environment whilst also juggling our two young children and it doesn’t help that I work away during the week. As you can all appreciate being a mum is a hard enough task without also managing to juggle a demanding job, every day life and a business. Jo never ceases to amaze me. She continuously thinks about others and what she can do to help people. She worked tirelessly to research her first book and to seek he support of Literary agents and publishers. She never gave up on her dream and never lost sight that we can expect great things from little people so the message needed to be spread far and wide! Jo set up a website and interacted with people via social media to share her belief that young children can be utilised for parents with existing medical conditions or those who suddenly become ill/injured and cannot raise assistance themselves. She had received many an email or message from people saying they taught their child and in an emergency situation their child had helped them! Jo gained the backing of a large Early Years organisation who also believe strongly that children should be aware of dangers around them and know what to do in different emergency situations and ideally how to avoid them in the first place. Finally, ‘ Izzy and Ollie – Adventure in an Ambulance’ was published and Jo’s hard work had paid off. Not only does she want to help save lives whilst at work but she is throws all her energy into doing just that whilst at home! I believe my wife is an inspiring role model as she is a great example of someone who never gives up when she can see the benefits of helping others.
What is your business / idea and what would you use the £5,000 towards if you were to win
Jo would like to utilise her safety knowledge and produce he other books she has written. There are so many child safety topics that children need reinforced from the teachings that parents, teachers and other influential people the children may encounter. Children often learn more through play and listening to or reading a bedtime story. I as a parent can’t tell you how many times I had to remind my children to keep their seatbelt on, and didn’t really appreciate the stress of a child removing their seatbelt whilst driving on busy dual carriageways with no where to stop! Once our children were read a story that depicted and explained the consequences (in a mild manner of course!) the seat belts were never tampered with again! Children are sponges at a young age. They are capable of understanding and learning such a lot and all jo has ever wanted to do is to help other parents teach their children. If Jo was to be awarded this sum of money she would invest it in new books. She would also like to invest in a modern animation to teach children about strangers and potential dangers. Since we were young children and watched “Charlie says”….. short animations explaining road safety to children we cannot recall watching anything in modern times to this effect. Children are technology savy and an app with a short clip on would be a perfect media platform to get vital messages out to children. This could be developed an expanded to cover lots of subjects. Jo would eventually like to produce an item that can be placed into children (item of jewellery perhaps) with a chip device that could track children via mobile phone apps if parents lost sight of their children. This however would require considerable funding however the idea is there and once one door is opened the opportunities may well present themselves at a later date. I know Jo will be honoured to receive recognition for her work let alone receive a reward of monetary value. Any assistance you can offer to help spread the word would be more than enough. Thank you for taking the time to read this application. Jo’s work can be seen at www.izzyandollie.com she is also on Twitter or on FB Izzy and Ollie
