Careers Interview: Nikki Smith, short breaks practitioner, Kids

1 March 2011 1 min read Health Disabled children and young people

Twenty-one-year-old Nikki Smith has been working as a part-time short breaks practitioner in Camden, north London, for the charity Kids since July 2010.

She is studying for a degree in special education at the University of East London and fits her work around her studies.

She currently supports a child who has severe autism and sees him after school and all day on a Sunday. They normally go to the park, visit the cinema or go for a trip on the bus or train.

"I absolutely love the job, especially watching the children learn and develop," she says. "The child I'm working with at the moment couldn't speak when I first started working with him. But I take him out and he says my name and things like 'let's go on the train'."

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