GWENT featured prominently among prizes dished out for staff development at a gala event. And the hosts lifted a prize, too. BUSINESS ARGUS was there.

NURSERY-owner Tracey Steadman (pictured) is committed to training and motivating her staff - all 20 of them.

Her Penrhos private nursery at Ponthir is as big as nurseries go. That number of employees is needed to deal with the 200 registrations on the books.

Her interest in the professional welfare of the staff was recognised when she was named runner-up in the People Manager of the Year category at a gala awards ceremony organised by the National Council for Educ-ation and Learning for Wales (ELWa) at the Celtic Manor Resort, Newport.

Penrhos was started by Tracey, a local government accountant by training, and former director of the creche at County Hall, Cwmbran, just a year ago.

In that time the business has grown so fast that it now looks after 40 out-of-school children aged between four and 14 ,and 52 from birth to age five. Others making up the 200 do not use the services all the time.

Early on Tracey signed up with G and J Partnership, the Pontypool training company, which helped her undergo two training schemes with staff - Training for Champions and Building a Better Business.

Penrhos is also preparing to go for a much-prized Investor in People accolade this summe. r "My philosophy is that if you look after the staff they will look after the children and look after you," she said.

"It is a quality assurance for the parents that we are doing the best by the kids. "The staff think it is brilliant because they may have come from other nurseries where they might not have been treated as well and they think this is a happy place to work." Tracey was a single parent for a long time and has three children of her own aged 15, nine and two. This was one of the reasons why Penrhos decided to take children up to 14.

She said there were long-term benefits to looking after staff. Staff turnover in many nurseries was very high.