Orlando

About Me

Hi there ?

?I’m Orlando Timothy Fletcher.

?I’m a professional childcarer, writer, songwriter, and creator.

?I’ve been working with children in the UK for nearly a decade (since June 2016), starting as an au pair at 25 and going into it head first. During this time, I’ve had the privilege of looking after children of all ages—newborns, babies, toddlers, school-age children, and teenagers. My first childcare role was with a single parent raising four children. Since then, I’ve worked as an au pair, live-in nanny, live-out nanny, babysitter, volunteer, and Ofsted-registered childcarer.

?Childcare was not something I accidentally drifted into. Before childcare, my path was not clean or straight. I trained as a car mechanic, worked in an artificial-grass factory, did scaffolding, warehouse work, some sewage-system work, and jobs that were far away from the work I actually wanted. I left my family at twenty. Childcare was something I chose, built, studied, practised, and kept choosing.

?<Professional Scope & Logistics>
I provide professional childcare for families across London, specialising in flexible ad hoc, emergency, and regular part-time Nanny and traditional Babysitting services (not after-school and wrap-around care because of long-term sustainability concerns).

?I lived with various families for almost 7 years in total, taking care of their children. In some families, this included proxy parenting from short stretches to multiple weeks at a time—full responsibility for the children while parents were away, including overnight and day-to-day continuity. I now work mostly as a self-employed individual, providing flexible ad hoc and emergency childcare, whilst also working as a regular part-time nanny to secure some stable income.

?I’m registered with Ofsted, and families can use Tax-Free Childcare when booking with me, or claim back childcare costs from Universal Credit, if eligible for either.

?<Special Educational Needs & Hands-On Experience>
Although I’ve worked with children across all age groups, most of my hands-on experience has been with babies and toddlers, including newborns. That’s mainly because younger children are the ones most often needing daytime cover and older children are usually at school.

?I have extensive experience working with children with special needs and disabilities, including immobile and PEG-fed children:
?- Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), including both verbal and nonverbal presentations and a range from severe to high-functioning,
?- ADHD,
?- Down’s syndrome,
?- Physical disabilities including cerebral palsy,
?- Developmental delays,
?Issues and disabilities stemming from genetic conditions,
- ?Experience with safely handling children using lifting equipment, standing and sitting frames, wheelchairs, as well as applying splints and Lycra orthoses,
- ?Experience with feeding and administering medication via enteral feeding tubes (NG and PEG) now also backed by formal training,
- PANS/PANDAS.
?
I always adapt my approach to each child’s unique needs—whether that means using visual communication tools, supporting sensory preferences, or tailoring activities to their abilities and interests. Most importantly, I am always trying to do with children with special needs and disabilities what unaffected children could do, if it can be safely adapted, and adapt those activities where I can.

<?Qualifications & Certifications>
I hold a Data Protection Registration Certificate from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). Some of the relevant qualifications and certifications I already hold are:
?- Level 3 Diploma in Childcare & Development
- ?Level 3 Maternity Nurse Training (Babyem)
?- Certificate of Higher Education in Psychology
?- Paediatric First Aid
?- Safer Sleeping for Babies
?- Moving & Handling People with Special Needs
?- Enteral (PEG) Feeding Training – including NG feeding and medication administration via a G-Tube
?- Common Core Skills & Knowledge for the Childcare Workforce
?- Managing Behaviour in the Early Years
?- Supporting children’s emotional well-being
?- Understanding adverse childhood experiences and trauma
?- Level 2 Safeguarding Children
?- Equality and Diversity
?- GDPR
?- Functional Skills in English and Maths (GCSE equivalent)
?- Full UK Driving Licence

?<My Blueprint & Philosophy>
My approach to childcare is deeply personal, built on a core philosophy: I believe that all behaviour is communication. My role is to listen to what a child is truly saying, not just by what they say, but especially by what often goes unspoken.

?My childhood is part of why I understand the weight of this. My childhood was shaped by the absence of the safety, attunement, and consistent warmth every child not only so deeply deserves, but also so dearly needs. As a child, I didn’t fully understand what I was missing—just that something felt off. As a child, you adapt to what’s around you. You don’t yet know what’s normal, so whatever you experience at home can easily feel like it’s just how the world works—because it’s the only reality you know. But as I got older, I realised how much I had been denied—not just love, but the safety, comfort (not just physical), security, care, understanding, attunement, and guidance that every child deserves.

?Through that experience, I came to understand what should never be missing in a child’s life, and what should never be a part of it. How to provide that security, connection, and warmth to a child is an expertise I had to construct myself, without a blueprint, by reading the contrast between what children deserve and what I received instead. My past is part of how I came to understand the weight of presence, the importance of attunement, and the difference that steadiness, care, and emotional safety can make in a child’s life. It also shapes how I see, how I care, and what I choose to make.

?<The Heart of My Childcare>
Childcare isn’t just “keeping routine” — it’s stepping into a day that changes the moment parents need to step out (for work, appointments, or life). My work includes meals, naps, nappies, outings, play, bath, bed, school runs, emotional storms, practical routines, sensory needs, disabilities, medical care, parent handovers, and the thousand small things that hold a child’s day and night together. I focus on two things at once: practical care (whatever is needed to hold the hearth steady) and emotional wellbeing (helping children feel settled, valued, understood, and confident while you’re away).

?I also know that childcare can get messy—emotionally, physically, sometimes both at once—and I stay caring and steady without shaming a child for having big feelings, having accidents, testing boundaries, or for any effects of their play, behaviour, or curiosity.
?My job is to be a temporary constant in children’s lives: sometimes I’m there for one evening, sometimes for a full day, sometimes for a season—without ever replacing you—and I don’t treat short care as “lesser”.

Children live in the now, and what happens in that now counts: trust built, fear eased, confidence gained, and the reassurance that parents return. I step in when needed—present and reliable—then step out when the booking ends. That carries weight, because even brief care can strengthen a child’s sense of safety in the world.

?The heart of this work also lies in the small, everyday genuine moments of connection and trust. It’s in the feeling of a hesitant child at the swimming pool finally taking that exhilarating leap into the water, knowing I’ll be there to catch them. It’s in understanding that a little girl repeatedly throwing her teddies out of the cot isn’t being "naughty," but is cleverly communicating her deep need for attachment and presence before sleep.
?It's in answering the often unspoken question every child is asking, "Are you safe?" with an unwavering "Yes," and proving it to them every single time they test the boundaries and the foundations of the trust we constructed together. It's in understanding that a child flicking food onto the floor, throwing sand into my mouth, kicking me, biting me, scratching me, is not being naughty, is not being mean, and is not doing it out of malice. Some of it comes from children raising the stakes as the relationship and the trust we built deepen to ask: "Is this safety real, or will it collapse into punishment and rage? Are you safe enough for me to fall apart with?"

?My answer is always simple: "Yes."

?<A Summary of My Core Skills>
?Attachment-Focused Care: This is about being a temporary constant in a child's life. It's more than just being present; it's about providing an attuned, responsive presence that builds a rock-solid sense of safety. I meet children where they are, understanding that a secure attachment is the essential foundation from which they can feel safe enough to explore and build something new. It's also in the quiet truth behind a small hand slipping into mine—not out of habit, but out of trust that we built, together.

?Trauma-Informed Practice: My approach is grounded in the lived understanding that what is often labelled "misbehaviour" can be a physiological echo of a child's past. I believe that all behaviour is communication, and my role is to see beyond the surface-level action to the underlying need. It is an expertise I had to build for myself, learning how to provide safety not because I’d seen it modelled, but precisely because I hadn't.

?Emotional Co-regulation: When a child is overwhelmed by big feelings, my role is to be their calm anchor—the calm they can borrow. This can be quiet, like helping a tired baby to calm down and rest; it can be playful, like the times I did an exaggerated, silly tumble at a soft play centre to break through a toddler's fear; it can also mean providing steady, physical containment for a child in the midst of sensory overload, holding them gently but firmly until the storm passes.

?Compassionate Boundary Setting: I understand that when children stress-test the foundations of our trust, it is a desperate, non-verbal question. They are raising the stakes to ask if the safety is real.

?Rupture and Repair: I am not perfect. There are times I make mistakes, misread a cue, or simply get it wrong. For me, the most important part of building trust is what happens next. My commitment is to own my mistakes, apologise genuinely, and actively repair the connection. This process teaches a vital lesson: that relationships are resilient, that it’s okay to be imperfect, and that a child's feelings are always valid enough to deserve a sincere and heartfelt repair.

?<Beyond Childcare: Studies & Creative Work>
Childcare is a serious part of my life, but it is not the whole of me. I am not my role. My role does not define me. In many ways, I define it.

?I’m aiming for a degree in Child Psychology—not only as part of my longer-term goal of becoming a Play Therapist, but also to deepen the support I can offer to children in my care right now.

?Alongside childcare, I create songs, lullabies, autobiographical work, and children’s books.

My first published musical project, The Babysitter’s Lullaby Family, came from real childcare practice. I built it around co-regulation, embodied safety, truth, connection, and the reassurance of return. It is for parents, and for any caregiver who has ever sung a child who wasn't their own to sleep. It belongs to a much wider body of work about childhood, safety, absence, presence, cold, warmth, care, and what a child’s body needs in the room from the person there.

?So this is me: Orlando Timothy Fletcher. A childcarer, creator, writer, songwriter, publisher, student, and someone still building from what I know, what I’ve lived, and what I’ve come to understand.

?Temporary and constant.

?Always present, yet never permanent.

?Still listening to what is spoken, and what is not.

?And still choosing to answer.

?Again and again and again.