A Co Tyrone mum of three is celebrating the publication of a new book which draws on her experience of bringing young and old people together during a twenty year career.
Fey Cole is a lecturer at South West College in Dungannon specialising in working with early years children and has run a number of projects helping encourage people of different generations to come together during the pandemic and beyond.
Fey says she is hugely passionate about the subject and hoped her book, ‘Intergenerational Practice in Schools and Settings’ would help teachers and educators recognise the importance of it.
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“I’ve worked in childcare for 20 years and for the last eleven years I’ve been working in further education,” Fey said.
“I decided last year to write a book and I got the green light from publishers thankfully. I met with other teachers from Tyrone and Fermanagh and local community groups and was able to draw on their experiences as well.
“It’s all about bringing different generations together, during coronavirus all of those projects had to stop and we couldn’t have visitors into schools and things like that.
“We were working with students, working with care homes, supporting each other and sharing each other’s stories.
“I’m a full-time lecturer and mum of three with a busy life, but it’s been great to see the project at this stage now."
Fey won a Northern Ireland Social Media Award last year for ‘Best Use of Social Media for Education’ with her work on her social media platforms Mrs C's Early Years Education Forum.
“I managed to win the award and that was really exciting because when I set up my social media platforms nine or ten years ago I found it was a really good tool for students coming together and sharing their own experiences in a new way,” Fey added.
“I was really surprised and honoured to get that because in further education sometimes you have that platform for different events, so it was nice for vocational education to be recognised like that.
“It was for how I engaged people during Covid and post Covid in their education via my online platform.”
London-born Fey says she moved to Dungannon 12 years ago and now loves living and working in the area.
“I left school at 16 and wasn’t really sure what to do so went into further education myself," she said.
“I learned to be a nursery nurse and it’s been very much hands on throughout my career.
“Even now I work with young children and I really enjoy just being around people and learning new things together.
“Writing the book was a bit of a lockdown project and it gave me the chance to reflect back and think about how we can share that with others.
“Bringing people together is so important to me, it was so scary as I didn’t think I would get the publishing deal but when it did come it was amazing to get that opportunity.”
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