Outside of school hours care services in Weipa will return in time for the Christmas holiday season. Photo: Supplied.
Lack of childcare options will soon be a thing of the past for many working parents in Weipa as the community prepares to welcome the return of outside of school hours care (OSHC) services next month.
After a few months delay due to staffing issues, the new Weipa OSHC will open its door in time for the Christmas school holiday season at St Joseph’s Parish School.
Kim Wallace, who will be heading up the service as its nominated supervisor, said it had been a challenging year for parents juggling work and children.
“It’s really impacted a lot of parents, because a lot of them don’t have family up here,” she said.
“I know a lot of them had to change their hours and they weren’t able to do their full-time hours anymore.
“Even the people that work at the early childhood centre have had to change their hours, and that’s had a flow-on effect, because their ratios have dropped and less kids can go.”
Following the closure of OSHC services in the region late last year, the Diocese of Cairns had plans to reopen during term three, but postponed to ensure staff shortages would not interfere with consistent service.
“We just want to make sure that when we’re open, we’re properly open and there’s continuous service for the community; we don’t want to have to be closing sometimes because we can’t get enough staff on,” Catholic Early Learning and Care director Alison Forster said.
“It’s going to be open to both schools, and at the moment, we’re looking at 30 total that we can take, depending on how things go.
“It feels fantastic – for my colleagues and I, it’s the first new centre we’ve opened, so it’s been a great learning curve, but it also gives us optimism that we can do this in more remote parts of the diocese.”
Ms Forster said after the delay, they planned to begin services in the new year, but were encouraged to offer services over the Christmas holiday period.
“Our logical step would have been opening for the new school year, but we were really encouraged to think about the fact that it’s a long Christmas break for people in Weipa who don’t have anyone there to help,” she said.
“It’s a little bit outside of the box to actually start a program at the end of the year, but we did get the message that that’s a really tricky time to get your kids looked after, so we thought we might as well start in December.”
Weipa local Kim Wallace will take on the nominated supervisor role. Photo: Supplied.
