General News
16 September, 2024
Helping to ease the burden of child care
For Horsham 's Sinead Leonforte, ironically, the issue she was attempting to help was preventing her actually helping.
Ms Leonforte is studying early childhood education, made possible only with assistance from Wimmera Southern Mallee (WSM) Development and Federation University in launching a program to assist people who were not working and come up with ways to make it happen.
For Ms Leonforte, a mum of two, a lack of care options for her children, along with course inflexibility, prevented her studying sooner.
"This program has allowed flexibility by being able to attend classes online and watch the recordings if something comes up and you can't attend," Ms Leonforte said.
"Flexibility is important when you have children."
Ms Leonforte said the support was boosted further by funding for care for those who needed it.
"But the problem in the Wimmera at the moment is a lack of available spaces in childcare centres," she said.
"Studying in early childhood was something I knew I wanted to do - it was just a matter of how and when - and the program has allowed me to start my career sooner than I expected, which is exciting," Ms Leonforte said.
"I think it's a great opportunity if you have been thinking about studying or looking for a career change as the program gives extra support to do it."
Ms Leonforte said there was a big shortage of early childhood educators in the region and the research program had been a great initiative to look at which supports could be put in place and why to encourage people to take up study in these fields.
Other residents in the Wimmera Mallee who face barriers to studying are being supported through the program, kickstarting their career and responding to the demand for care workers.
WSM Development and Federation University in Horsham secured $1 million in state government funding to identify which types of people in the community were not working, and why, and to come up with a unique way to engage these people in free training to open career pathways.
Initial research by the university found that a significant number of women between 25 and 44 years of age in the region did not work because they found it difficult to attend training in person, WSM development program manager Binesh Tholath said.
“Most of these people live in small towns and face barriers like childcare and transport so they can’t get to classes,” Mr Tholath said.
“Some don’t have access to a laptop or they might have challenges with computer literacy.”
Mr Tholath said WSM Development and Federation Uni got together to design a training model that broke barriers to study and focused on the needs of each student so they could access free training in the care industry.
“We run all the classes online - with the option to come to Fed Uni on occasion - and provide fuel vouchers and laptops to the students who need them,” he said.
“We also offer other types of support, such as extra tutoring and textbooks.”
Twelve people from communities in the Wimmera have started the Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care and a further three are updating qualifications to return to the industry.
The program is looking for more students to take part in more training with similar supports to kick off in coming months, including the Certificate III in Individual Support, Certificate IV in Disability and Certificate IV in Community Services.
For more information about the upcoming courses, contact Binesh Tholath on 0436 118 091 or Binesh.tholath@wsm.org.au