Child care professionals share a commitment to improving society by creating dynamic and nurturing care environments for Australia's youngest learners.
Read this month's Child Care Person in the spotlight Leah Cavanagh Director of the Murray Bridge Early Learning Centre in South Australia.
Leah Cavanagh- Director
Murray Bridge Early Learning Centre SA
C4K: What is your current position?
LC: I am Director of the Murray Bridge Early Learning Centre a private, family owned, 75-place long day care centre in South Australia.
C4K: What is your professional background and career experience?
LC: I have worked in child care for 16 years. I started as an assistant and am now a director after working my way though ranks.
C4K: What attracted you to a career in child care?
LC: I am a fun-loving, highly energetic person who is happy to have found a job that welcomes personalities like mine. I love being involved in fun, hands on learning and what better way to achieve this than through working in an early childhood setting?
C4K: What does a 'normal' day look like for you?
LC: My day starts at 830am and goes through until 630pm. I wear a variety of hats from being the bus driver during school and kindy runs, working on the floor in a small dynamic staff team, playing with children and being a hands on director who strives to be a positive role model and mentor. My motto is children and staff come first, happy staff means happy children. When I can I tackle office work at home or when the centre closes. I believe you only get back what you put in.
C4K: What are some of the advantages of working in the child care sector?
LC: It is a great way to be a special part of children's lives and to be a positive influence in their development through a play based learning environment.
C4K: What are some of the biggest challenges facing the child care sector?
LC: We are suffering from a lack of qualified staff, a lack of resources and the need for additional training
C4K: How has your centre changed to deal with these challenges?
LC: We have networked with other local centres to source training opportunities for ourselves based on centre needs.
We accessed free paint to brighten up our indoor environment and held working bees to paint the centre outside of operating hours. We also encouraged family participation in an outdoor working bee to create gardens and make our outdoor environment as great as we could. As well as being great for the children we thought this could to encourage new enrolments by enticing people who drive by to come and have a look at our centre.
All of these projects were done outside of hours, in my staff's own personal time and with no remuneration other than the knowledge that what they put in was for the children in our care!
C4K: How does the industry need to change to adapt to these challenges
LC: We need more government funding to be allocated to rural centres. We also need assistance in free training to help centres with limited budgets provide a stimulating environment for children on a limited budget.
C4K: What advice would you offer someone thinking about a career in child care?
LC: Try and do some volunteer work at a local child care centre to see if this is what you really would like to do. Being a child care professional is a lot different to being a babysitter, a misconception many people outside the industry seem to hold.
C4K: Any final words?
LC: It is always a positive move to go that extra mile rather than ponder and wonder should I have? Would I have? Could I have? Working towards a goal and putting in the hard yards makes it all worthwhile in the end!
Leah Cavanagh
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