A UNIQUE summer jobs program aimed at attracting educators to kindergartens in Swan Hill who do not have early childhood studies drew the attention of the Department of Education and Training last year.
Young Adventurers Early Childhood Education Services owner Marg Hartshorn operates two childcare centres in the rural city, providing kinder and childcare for about 180 families, and employs 45 educators across both centres.
“Last year I launched a pilot program in Swan Hill called Summer Jobs in ECE campaign,” she said.
“This program is unique to our service and drew attention from the Department of Education and other centres around Australia as it was a new concept and was very successful.
“We had experienced a drop in staffing due to COVID and did not have any school students coming through our centres which helps them to decide what career they want to look into.
“So we came up with a way of encouraging school leavers and anyone else interested in a career in early childhood to work for three months with no commitments before deciding if they wanted to stay.
“This is the opposite to what we normally do as usually we only employ those that have already completed studies in early childhood or are already enrolled and studying.”
Ms Hartshorn said the summer jobs program was so successful, she ended up offering permanent work to several local people who are now completing traineeships with the centres.
“We also found a few students who had not been able to do placements due to COVID lockdowns who wanted work and so were able to offer them casual work straightaway,” she said.
The 2022 campaign is about to be launched.
“People need to start to think of innovative ways to build up their workforce and this has proven to work for us,” Ms Hartshorn said.
“It may not work for everyone.
“We have some great success stories, including Zoe, who was finishing Year 12 at the end of 2021 and applied for the program with us just before her Year 12 exams.
“Once she finished her exams, she worked for three months with us then took up a permanent part-time traineeship with us and is happily working and studying her new career.”
Zoe said she had always thought about primary teaching or going into a field where teaching and child support were involved.
“This is a good starting point-pathway rather than committing to the full-time university study,” she said.
She said for the first three months she worked three or five-hour shifts, predominantly in the same room with children aged six months to three years.
Zoe eventually built up more shifts along the way until she was doing full days.
“Then Young Adventurers offered me a traineeship doing the Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care and organised all of the study through Bendigo TAFE,” she said.
“I have paid study time each week and get all of my class work done during this time or I sometimes I may need to set aside a few hours a week at home.”
The traineeship is a two-year course.
