Family Day Care


Homepage - Brotherhood timeline  | Service areas - home | Children and Families - home

 

Family Day Care where children are cared for by other mothers in their own homes first introduced in Australia by the BSL (1971)

 

1971 

Family Day Care Service, where children of working mothers are cared for by other mothers in their own homes with help and guidance from a social worker and kindergarten teacher, began in September as a three year pilot project funded by four Melbourne Trusts.  Mrs Barbara Spalding carried out the studies that led to the experiment first introduced in Australia by the BSL [1] 

BSL_Limurru_Neighbourhood_Centre_Proposal_1982-11-24.pdf.

 

1973

Family Day Care, halfway through the 3-year project, has forty children cared for by twenty-two local women,  and the Commonwealth Government gave a financial grant to assist with continuation for eighteen months

 

Limurru Child Care Centre (“a small-scale children’s nursery” in a local house purchased by the Brotherhood with funds from the Australian Government) opened in Napier Street, Fitzroy, originally established to support & complement the BSL’s Family Day Care program.  “The Family Day Care type of model has many positive features as a form of child care, but it is important that these features are tried in a group care setting.”  Three of the staff were local mothers and the fourth a mothercraft nurse.   (Family Day Care was handed over to Fitzroy Council in 1982) [2]

 

1974

Research program, financed substantially by the BSL, under way to study the developments in Family Day Care programs in three districts - Fitzroy, Knox Shire and the Municipality of St Kilda.   “The present funds will be exhausted in September 1974.  Since its inception as the first project of this type under a voluntary agency’s auspices in Australia, several similar programs have been initiated, particularly by local councils. [3]

 

1982

Family Day Care program (based in Limurru since 1973) transferred to the Fitzroy Council. 

 

1983

Co-ordinators report.   BSL_Limurru_Neighbourhood_Centre_12-month_Report_1983-10.pdf

 

Outline of Objectives.  BSL_Limurru_Objectives_1983-9.pdf

 

1984

Notes from Staff conference (Rye) - Limurru.  BSL_Limurru_Staff_re_Achievements_1984-4.pdf 

 

1986

Brief Description.  BSL_Limurru_Brief_Description_1986-5.pdf 

 

 

1991

2 people employed to run the new Occasional Child Care program in Craigieburn.

 

 

Family day care activities continue on to this day. For informationa bout current activities, visit the Brotherhood website: Family day care.

 

 

Footnotes

  1. BSL Annual Report 1971-1972 p.4 (no numbering).
  2. Limurru - an aboriginal word meaning “let us share together”. BSL Annual Report 1972-1973 p.5 and BSL Annual Report 1973-1974 p.4. Also see proposal for Limurru Neighbourhood Parent & Children’s Centre (24 November 1982)
  3. BSL Annual Report 1973-1974 p.4