Jane Howe remembered
Just as the children and families we are privileged to work with are individual and unique, so too was Jane. As you read this tribute to a beautiful lady who radiated warmth and enthusiasm, we know that she touched the lives of so many people.
Jane arrived to East Yorkshire Portage Team with a wealth of knowledge and experience of working with children with special educational needs, initially taking a while to be accepted in to an already established team, however she soon endeared herself to her colleagues when they realised that along with being very professional and organised with her work she could also be somewhat ditzy, for example when attending training for the first time with her new colleagues she had forgotten her purse and had to ‘borrow’ from the team and she continued in this vain by leaving an assortment of her belongings at various homes and venues across East Yorkshire.
She was always the consummate professional developing the Portage Service until it became a 5 Star Service nationally, she was innovative and embraced change and pioneered the Portage Stamp of Approval in East Riding, a quality assurance mark to support fully inclusive education in Early Years settings. This has then been picked up and embedded as good practice within the National Portage Association. Jane ran Portage Workshops and through these upskilled and improved practice in the Early Years workforce across the county. Her main passion was to improve the lives of children with additional needs and their families, by ensuring they had they best early intervention that was available, through children being included and supported to succeed.
Jane was compassionate, inspirational, caring, sensitive, intuitive and many other things besides, but above all she was good fun, managing to bridge the gap between supervisor and the Portage team, whilst always maintaining a high level of professionalism. Jane could be relied upon at keeping confidences; she was good at resolving difficulties and was able to relate to people from all walks of life.
Her love and pride in all of her family was evident to us all and we will miss her terribly for many reasons but particularly her wicked sense of humour and never ending diets.
To all our many wonderful memories Jane, gone too soon, but never forgotten.