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 Rebekah Paraskevas from Sunshine Child Care Centre in Shoalwater WA
Rebekah Paraskevas
Sunshine Child Care Centre in WA
C4K: What is your name?
RP: Rebekah Paraskevas but everyone just calls me Bec, I am 35 years old.
C4K: Which centre do you work in? How many staff and children are in the centre?
RP: I work in Sunshine Child Care Centre which is a 71 place long day care centre and Sunshine Child Care Centre outside school hours and vacation care which has 52 places. We have 24 staff in total across both centres.
C4K: What is your professional background and career experience?
RP: At the age of 17 I joined the navy as an electrical fitter and mechanic. After five years I discharged and worked as an electrician for two years, until I was offered a trainee manager position with Pacific Dunlop to work in electrical wholesale and distribution. I resigned after five years to have my second child.
I was a stay at home mum for the next two years and decided to operate a family day care service from my home. This was a very interesting position and my husband and I decided that we would buy a child care centre.
In May 2004, we took over as owner/operators of Sunshine Child Care Centre which was then a small 31 place long day care centre. Seeing the need to increase licensed places in the area, we purchased the vacant block of land next door and constructed what is now our main building and re-licensed our service to 71 places in February 2007.
In December 2006, we expanded our business to include a 39 place outside school hours and vacation care service in the next suburb. This service was increased to 52 places in December 2008 due to increased demand for school aged care within the area.
In Jan 2009, my husband and I relocated to Karratha WA and I now take a purely administrative role overseeing operations across both centres. I have left the centre supervising roles to our very capable and experienced staff.
C4K: What attracted you to a career in child care?
RP: A genuine love of children. My own children have given me a great insight into the needs of children and as such, I felt that I have the dedication and determination to provide a better environment to children within our community than was currently being offered by other service providers.
Over the past five years, I have completed my Certificate III and Diploma and have almost completed a Certificate IV in workplace assessment and training. I am completing the Cert IV in order to better provide for my current and future staff needs in relation to training and professional development.
C4K: What makes your centre unique?
RP: In April 2008, I designed and implemented the Personal Empowerment Programme (PEP) at our long day are service. The PEP structure is focused around children aged 18 months to three and a half years of age. The PEP has been designed to allow children the opportunity to gain greater social and emotional confidence, interact with carers and children of varying ages in small groups, and to develop and practice skills at their own pace.
By incorporating children across a broad age range into the programme, younger children gain from observing older children's participation in activities, routines etc and are more confident at having a go for themselves. It also allows the older children to practice team leadership skills, as each group needs a leader and the carers vary the experiences to ensure all children benefit in this way.
The PEP structure also allows children to practice skills already learnt and develop new skills in a non-intimidating situation - sometimes children find it difficult to master skills already learnt by their peers if those peers are watching them and as such, we as carers see a lot of children refusing to participate which in turn can lead to behavioural issues.
Using the PEP structure, this problem is alleviated considerably due to children being placed in groups that support their stages of development.
The success of the PEP structure has been measured by collecting quantifiable data over the past 12 months for the following key performance indicators:
- Lower staff absences due to stress and illness
- Less non-contact time required for staff to complete observations, programming, evaluations etc as traditionally two different programmes were being created for these ages of children and now we have one being created that has levels of developmental stages incorporated into each activity
- Greater purchasing efficiency for craft items etc, as items can be purchased in bulk for a set programme and arrive on time prior to the programme's commencement date.
- Greater job satisfaction of staff
- Stronger bonding between carers and children
- Less behaviour management plans needing to be designed and implemented for individual children
RP: Satisfaction in knowing that our service provides excellent opportunities for children to grow and learn through play. Seeing happy children and happy families at the end of each day makes me feel glad that I have chosen child care as my profession.
C4K: What are some of the biggest challenges facing the child care sector?
RP: We don't have many at our centre, however I do feel that a low level of public perception about the role of the child carer is held by the general community
C4K: How has your centre changed to deal with these challenges?
RP: All senior staff and office staff ensure that parents are spoken to each day about the initiatives, activities designed, training undertaken etc that affects staff within the centre.
Clients need to be made aware of the fact that professional carers are not baby sitters and we work very hard and undertake extensive training to ensure their children receive the most developmentally beneficial and entertaining experience whilst at the centre.
C4K: Does the industry need to change to adapt to these challenges?
RP: Not really, I feel that as the need for child care increases, clients will begin to understand how important the job is to the community. Perhaps there are some operators that do not promote and support their staff to the same extent that I do, but that would be their difference in policy and company strategy to mine.
C4K: What advice would you offer someone thinking about a career or looking for a promotion in child care?
RP: For new employees, try to participate in casual or work experience type situations before making a commitment to child care as a career. It is a very fulfilling and rewarding career, but it is not for everyone - a love of children is not always enough. A child carer must wear many hats and this can prove to be difficult for some employees.
Find a child care provider that has a strong reputation within your area, who offers a strong commitment not only to the children, but to staff as well. Long term staff members are usually a good indicator of such things. An unqualified carer requires a lot of support to develop the skills and knowledge needed to become a qualified carer, so choose your employer wisely and your career will develop from there.
For those looking for a promotion, ensure your skills are up to date with current national best practice advice, demonstrate commitment to your job role and also to your management team and workmates. Show initiative and determination to overcome issues and most importantly, communicate your career goals with management and together you can develop a plan to achieve these goals.
C4K: Is there anything else you would like to add?
RP: In this world there are managers and there are leaders. A leader is a person who is not afraid to get down and help an associate get the job done. A leader encourages others to develop skills and strive for excellence without fear that they will lose their own seniority/job if another shows great competence for the role.
A leader regularly makes statements to others that encompass team statements (ie. we, us, our etc). We all need leaders in child care and my centres would not operate successfully without them. I put a lot of attention and time into developing training plans and strategies for my staff to participate in, and believe that, a happy staff member who remains employed with us for a short time and is given the opportunity to gain knowledge and enhance skills over that short period of time has been a much better investment than the unhappy staff member that cannot strive to succeed.
The staff that we owners/operators employ need to be given the same level of nurturing and respect that we would give our favourite client to ensure that the client doesn't take their business elsewhere (and likewise, so the staff member doesn't take their skills elsewhere).
At Sunshine, I have developed a strong working relationship with SMYL Community Services (our local RTO) and as such have offered Cert III, Cert IV and diploma traineeships to 24 employees, all of which have been completed or are in the process of being completed.
I have been told that I am very particular when it comes to signing off competencies, however, I need to ensure that a trainee has the skills to complete any task they are given in future years and I find it very difficult to comprehend how certain RTO's can offer these courses and sign off trainees in 6 - 12 weeks, there may be a few trainees with exceptionally high RPL evidence for which these timeframes would be acceptable, however, I feel this type of cattle yard training only deteriorates the value of certifications that most of us have worked so hard to attain.
I love my business, my staff, my clients and the ability that I have to put my skills to work to ensure the things I care about are happy, safe and enjoy being part of the 'Sunshine Family'.
For further details on our Personal Empowerment Programme or on training/retention of staff feel free to contact me on sunshineccc@optusnet.com.au
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