Childcare boost for Waverley

Following a successful recruitment campaign by Waverley Council, at least 100 new places will be made available in the coming weeks for children at family day care centres across the local area.

In the past six months council has recruited 21 new local children’s educators to run family day care operations. Nine operations have already started and a further 12 are expected to start running soon. Each new operator will create about seven part-time positions for children.

In August last year, Waverley Mayor Sally Betts announced efforts by council to double the number of family day care educators over the next two years to meet the growing demand for child care across Waverley. More than six per cent of the population in Waverley are under four years of age and more than 10 per cent are under the age of nine.

“We have run a significant advertising campaign to increase the number of educators in our family day care program to comply with the new, one educator to four children ratio reforms,” Mayor Betts said.

For Ruth Seagull, from Ruth’s Family Day Care in North Bondi, the process of starting her operation was a positive and easy process. She registered with the Waverley Family Day Care Scheme.

“I received lots of support from the scheme,” she said.

“From setup, to children, to learning materials – I was overwhelmed by the help I received. I get a lot of good energy from the kids and the parents. I love what I do.”

Since January 2011, the federal government’s National Quality Standards reforms have been implemented across Australia.

“In the last three years, Waverley Family Day Care has been working with its educators to gradually incorporate reforms to the early childhood sector by January 1 this year, so that there will not be a dramatic impact on the families,” Cr Betts said.