Shayna’s love for children and child development has led her to a career in fashion education, teaching to a diverse population of students from Kindergarten through the university level. She holds a master’s degree in Fashion Studies from Parsons School of Design and has been working in fashion and art for 7 years! During Curated Care sessions, she loves to playfully explore, embrace, and develop creativity while building motor, language, and writing skills through learning to sew, collage, draw, paint, cook, bake, and read! Read our in-depth interview with Shayna to learn more about her creative spirit!

Hi, Shayna! Where are you from and what brought you to NYC?

Hello!

I spent most of my life growing up in Johannesburg, South Africa. I came to New York to do a master’s degree in Fashion Studies from Parsons School of Design. While doing my Masters in fashion, The New School started their graduate qualification in Gender and Sexuality Studies so I completed that simultaneously.

How long have you been working with kids?

This is the second year that I have worked with children professionally and consecutively. Before 2015, I volunteered as a childcare assistant at Refliwe Community Project in Gauteng, South Africa – which is a non-profit child care organization that educates children who experience poverty and homelessness in poverty-stricken areas on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa.

When you’re booked for a Curated Care session, what is your process in terms of preparation/items you bring?

Personally, I love painting, drawing, jewelry making, crafting and cooking. As I am a teacher, I incorporate all of these elements into my sessions with Curated Care. I always arrive at a session with a tote filled, uncompromisingly, with a tray of paint, tubes of various paint colors, paint brushes, paper, beads, different types of cord or string, glue, 2 types of glue markers, and storybooks (just in case!).

In preparation for a session, I always research the family’s profile on Curated Care, take note of the amount of kids and their ages, reach out to the family to ask more about themselves and their kids, including project preferences, allergies, likes and dislikes, and anything parents allow and do not allow. Then I always do research on age appropriate eco-friendly art projects and recycled art and crafts projects which I often combine with ideas that I have conceptualized. I then source/find the relevant materials and sometimes I print out or save the images to my iPad so the kids see the direction we are taking –sometimes I let it be a complete surprise!!

If I have been with a family for a while then I will get permission from the parents to do more adventurous projects like one of my favorites: making vegan, gluten-free healthy pancakes where we mix food coloring to make and learn the color wheel!

You often incorporate your fashion background into sessions. Can you tell us what kind of activities you create?

Yes! The fashion crafts often require longer sessions – mostly because we need a little bit more explanation time as well as preparation work. When the opportunity presents itself and I have been booked for a longer session, I will do some fabric painting and stitching such as the Thanksgiving tablecloth that I did with Valerie’s twin babies. Another one of my favorite fashion projects were the love-themed puchettes that the kids and I made with Sky’s family for their Valentine’s Day party! And of course, my ultimate was turning Marlene’s daughter Holland into a fairy princess when we played dress up and made her a bow headband to match her favorite dress of that moment.

What would you say is the value in hiring a Kid Expert versus a regular babysitter?

Kid Experts on the site are trained and experienced in their fields of art, literature, fashion, theatre, science, sports, music, dance, yoga, spiritual healing etc. At a higher education level, when universities hire a faculty member, they are more likely to hire someone who is skilled and experienced in the field for which they teach; this is similar to hiring a Kid Expert. You are hiring someone who is going to give your child educational enrichment based on their work experience. Furthermore, during the initial process when we are interviewing to become Kid Experts, we are background and reference checked so Curated Care takes extra precautions to ensure that families receive professional artists, scientists, and/or sportspeople who are also responsible, reliable, and safe to let into people’s homes. Most importantly, during the interviewing process we are also somewhat screened for our kid friendliness haha –meaning that above being talented and safe, your kids are actually going to have fun with us and therefore want to learn from us.

What has been the most rewarding part of being a Kid Expert at Curated Care?

When we take care of children we really have to be present with them because they rely on us to teach them how to be in the world, even just by our actions. So, when I am taking care of children, they encourage me to be the best version of myself because I know that they emulate my actions and learn through what I do and say. The most rewarding part about teaching children has been allowing them to shape how I am in the world so that I may be better at educating younger children as a Kid Expert and older scholars as an educator.