MOTHER-of-two Julie Kennedy thought she had few skills. But when her children started school she surprised herself when she re-entered the employment market. PAULINE HAWKINS meets a woman whose confidence has grown so much she lists belly dancing among her hobbies.

JULIE Kennedy is an attractive, 35-year-old mother-of-two who reads Patricia Cornwell novels and watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Ally McBeal on television.

But beneath this calm, mumsy surface there's a deeply determined woman who knows what she wants -- and has won the confidence to get it.

From joining a parenting course to give herself more confidence she has become a tutor in parenting skills herself. She has a diploma in counselling, is a master in a Japanese form of healing and helped set up the Citizens' Advice Bureau in Darwen.

She is a volunteer support worker at the Blackburn and Darwen Women's Centre and acts as a mentor for new volunteers, as well as helping to support women who have been victims of domestic violence and who suffer with anxiety, phobias or eating disorders.

She said: "It gives me a great sense of achievement to see someone who has come in upset and not knowing what they want, then going out and starting to do courses themselves. Sometimes we get feedback and discover some people have gone on to college afterwards.

"You can't ask for anything better than knowing you were there at the right time. It is a privileged position. But they can achieve what I have achieved. I have literally gone full circle."

Julie, who lives in Darwen, explained why and how she transformed her life in a few short years.

"First and foremost I wanted to get myself out of the house and start mixing with adults again, because my youngest child had started school," she said.

"The parenting course was to mix with adults and to break me into the adult market. I had been sitting at home with the children for seven years.

"We moved to Darwen when Christopher, who is 11, was nine months old, so it was a way of getting out and meeting people. It took a lot of effort.

"The parenting course was at Sudellside Neighbourhood Centre in Darwen and I was helped by the lady taking the course."

Julie discovered she had a whole range of skills, even though she had been out of the work market for several years. They included dealing with finances, nursing and food hygiene and domestic matters -- all roles developed in the home environment.

She also knew she was very good at listening because friends and family would often turn to her with their problems.

From having little confidence she began to see she had a lot to offer and, rather than saying she was a housewife, began to describe her role as "managing director of domestic affairs."

Julie had been very good with a sewing machine before she had her children but felt it had not been very stimulating mentally.

"I wanted to use my brain. I knew I had one but I had never had chance to prove it. I decided what I wanted to do and it all fell into place.

"I have surprised myself very much in what I have achieved.

"It's my life and I do what I like with it. Seven years ago I would not have said this. I decided what I wanted to do, talked myself into doing it and I have not looked back," she said. She has been supported by her husband John and by their children, Zoe, nine, and Christopher. While she was studying for her counselling diploma Julie would get the children out of bed at 5.30am once a week and get them ready for school so she could take John to work in order to have the car to get to Accrington and Rossendale College.

In less than five years Julie has transformed herself from being a homemaker to helping other women who visit the Blackburn and District Women's Centre in Wellington Street, St John's, Blackburn.

She is now one of the longest-serving volunteers at the women's centre, having worked there for four-and-a-half years.

During that time she has studied for, and achieved, a diploma in counselling. She is a Reiki Master -- a Japanese form of alternative medicine in which the practitioner channels healing energy into a patient to enhance energy and reduce stress, pain and fatigue -- and has become a tutor in parenting skills.

But her ambitions do not stop there. She is starting a language course this month and hopes in the longer term to gain paid work or set up her own business using the skills she has learned.

"I am not going to limit myself and if something grabs my attention I will go for it. If you want to do something you make the time," Julie said.

That also goes for one of the hobbies that she somehow manages to fit around her busy day. Belly dancing is something she always wanted to do and, researching on the internet, she discovered a Wednesday evening class at Eanam Wharf in Blackburn.

"There were 25 of us the other night, all different shapes and sizes," she said.

"It tones your tummy, bottom and hips -- even bits I had forgotten or didn't know I had!"