A Ministry Highlight
Highlighting one of our incredible ministries across our Faith Family.
Faith Family Early Learning
Taree
As an organization, Faith Family Early Learning has been operating for many years, initially beginning in 1996 from the vision of founder Dianne Matthewson. With a strong value for education and a yearning to love and care for others, the daycare service was established.
Over the years, Faith Family Early Learning has been able to maximise their outreach into the community with the aid of the National Quality Framework (NQF) - a national approach to regulation, assessment and quality improvement for early childhood education and care, introduced in 2012. With research showing quality education and care early in life leading to better health, education and employment outcomes later in life, the need for caring, equipping and educating daycare services became evident throughout every community. In this way, Faith Family Early Learning has had a strong ability to outreach to both families and children, both through education and through love and care.
Hayley Jobson, the Director and Educational Leader of Faith Family Early Learning Taree, leads the 103-place daycare and its amazing staff. Originally known as Happy Rompers, the centre opened in 2011 and was acquired by Faith Family in mid-2020 with Hayley appointed as Director of the location and Hazel Parker as Nominated Supervisor. Hayley expresses that a large portion of her role is comprised of aspects like “coordinating people’s feelings, listening, planning (when able) and ensuring that the kids are happy and healthy”, but is certainly not limited to these areas; she also has a core list of responsibilites that stretch from administration, human resources and any other facet of supporting the local community, including supporting children with additional needs and adjusting to everchanging policies.
Many projects are currently in progress at Taree’s Faith Family Early Learning Centre! The Owl playground (aimed for children of 4 - 5 years) is about to add new shade sails and has plans to add a chicken coop and more vegetable gardens. The goal is to allow the space to be a very natural play space for the children to discuss and learn about. As well as this, the Getting Grubby program is in place with the focus of embedding sustainable practices into the children’s daily routine. Taree has a great indoor / outdoor program and are using both areas to give children the freedom to choose, developing a sense of autonomy.
Worry Woos is also a new program added to the Centre. This is a great social and emotional program for the children which helps them associate and understand their emotions - something that can be quite a tricky concept for children.
In terms of reaching more into the local community, Hayley is looking forward to building further community from outside of the Centre’s staff, advocating to make more opportunities known to locals who may be looking to volunteer in the service. Equipped with a current Working With Children’s Check and any valuable skills or experiences to share with the children (such as knitting, painting, cooking, etc.), any volunteers looking to pass on their knowledge to the younger members of the next generation are welcome to enquire with Faith Family Early Learning Taree!
Eager to take on more development opportunities for staff, such as further accreditation and Circle of Security training, Hayley and her team in Taree’s Faith Family Early Learning Centre are excited for what’s to come in this year! For more information or to enquire about support, feel free to contact Hayley at hayley@faithfamilyearlylearning.com.au!