By Oliver Winn
A family daycare from Launching Place celebrated National Family Day Care Week with a fun-filled picnic.
Bush Kids Family Day Care is run by Danielle Kennedy at her home in Launching Place and she said the picnic was a hit among the children.
“It was good, the children all bought their own food to share at a similar eating time and then they enjoyed playing at the park. Afterwards we took bikes to the pump track that was available to us at the park,” she said.
The picnic aims to celebrate family day care and raise awareness about the benefits it brings as an alternative to conventional day care centres and kinders.
Ms Kennedy said she started Bush Kids Family Day Care after working as an early childhood educator for 22 years.
“The reason why I came to family daycare is because I wasn’t happy in the long daycare or kinder setting and I wanted to branch out on my own, more so to run to the philosophy and the ethos that I cared for and enjoyed.”
“In long daycare there’s a lot of restrictions financially, the ratio is quite high, so you’re working in rooms of up to 30 children, and you’re restricted to their movement inside and outside.”
“There’s also a lot of artificial playgrounds and plastic doors, whereas for me, I like doing family day cares with low ratios and what I spend from my budget isn’t restricted,” she said.
Ms Kennedy, is part of one of Australia’s largest networks of women in small business, with family day care providing early childhood professionals across the country the unique opportunity to run their own business from their own home and support local families with access to high quality early learning.
Celebrating its thirteenth year, National Family Day Care Week is on from May 5-11 and will highlight the vital role family day care educators and services play in the development and wellbeing of over 71,000 Australian children.
Chief executive officer of Family Day Care Australia Andrew Paterson said the flexibility of family day care made it just as important as other day cares.
“Family day care plays a critical role for families across Australia, in particular for families needing care outside the usual 9 to 5 or for those in regional and remote areas. The flexibility and agility of family day care and its unique approach to early learning, makes it an essential part of the education and care landscape,” Mr Paterson said.
Ms Kennedy said the ability for children to explore their environments freely at family day care is key to healthy development for the child.
“I don’t see these attachment issues with the children because they’re just so settled in the environment. There’s not four walls keeping them in one space here. We explore a lot and we don’t have a lot of boundaries as such.”
“I feel like it brings a lot more creativity and expression to the child, they’re expanding their creativity, their expression, their knowledge, it’s so much more broad in the environment rather than being stuck in a room.Their health is much better, their happiness, they’re settled,” Ms Kennedy said.
For many families, small group settings, home environments and the bond created between educators and children are a deciding factor in selecting family day care as their early learning option of choice.
“The one-on-one attention and natural home environment that family day care provides means children receive the attention they need to thrive, and educators are able to follow their passion and educate their way,” said Mr Paterson.
To find out more about National Family Day Care Week, please visit www.fdcweek.com.au
