Child care career is celebrated

By Shaun Inguanzo
FROM dirty bottoms to tears from young eyes – Julie Hoadley’s wiped them all in Noble Park for the past 30 years.
And yet the 57-year-old coordinator of the Noble Park Community Child Care Service is still as determined to make a positive difference to young lives as the day she started her child care career in September 1977.
The landscape of childcare has changed during 30 years but Ms Hoadley’s passion for community child care remains.
She is an advocate for the not-for-profit structure that feeds any funds surplus back into the centre to benefit the children it cares for.
And Noble Park is a shining example of the community helping itself.
“I suppose I have a moral issue with regard to making a profit from children,” she said.
“I think Department of Education should offer it free for families rather than leaving it to the business world.
“We are not-for-profit so any surplus goes back into staff training or equipment for the children.”
Ms Hoadley migrated to Australia from Hertfordshire, England, in the early 1970s and immediately began working in childcare in Melbourne.
It was in 1977 that she moved to Noble Park and began her mammoth stint at the local community child care centre.
At that time, the centre was located in Noble Street, long before the idea of the Paddy O’Donoghue Centre was even conceived.
“Noble Park was quieter and smaller but at the same time the childcare centre was still busy,” Ms Hoadley said.
“It was also very multicultural. Back then we had a lot of Yugoslavian people and a few Asians, too.”
Ms Hoadley takes great pride in knowing that she and her staff play vital roles in a child’s future development.
And while the proof of her excellent work can take some years to see, Ms Hoadley has been at Noble Park long enough to see some of her former clients – now friends – fall pregnant and have their own children.
“(The early years) are very critical, it is so important to a child’s development,” she said.
“More and more research is showing that brain development at an early stage is very important.
“I suppose some highlights of this job are seeing children come back here for work experience or who are parents themselves and saying what a good experience they had.
“It makes you feel really good about what you do.”
Ms Hoadley said one of the biggest changes to childcare during her 30 years in the industry was the move to a nationally accredited system that has set standards for all centres to meet.
If a centre meets the minimum standards, parents can apply for government subsidies on fees.
“Meeting the standards is a very long and detailed process, it has you looking at policy and procedures and, of course, making sure the children are looked after well,” Ms Hoadley said.
And having her own child has enabled the 57-year-old to see what every parent goes through.
“It’s very different bringing up your own children,” she said.
“You are emotionally involved and don’t always see things clearly, that is you are not as objective.
“I think I knew that because I could see it from families who send their children here.
“But it’s only a reality when it comes to you.”
To celebrate her milestone achievement, Ms Hoadley said centre staff threw a surprise party for her on 28 September.
“There were people there I hadn’t seen for years who I had worked with in the beginning, there were families who have been through the centre with all their children…I was so surprised.”