Tazmania

This is very close to home.

Tazmania News
Examiner.com.au

Generations Give Dedication to Child-care Service
By FRAN VOSS
Thursday, 15 June 2006

ANNIVERSARY: Bronwyn Witt, Joan Mills and Emily Ellings look over some of the photos in the Stewart St Creche's album. Picture: PAUL SCAMBLER

Stewart Child Care Services in Launceston is such a family affair that three generations of families work there and children come back as staff. The child-care centre in Watchorn St this week celebrates its 50th anniversary, starting with an open day yesterday.

Joan Mills, 74, of Youngtown, began work at the centre when it was located at the Queen Victoria Hospital.

She was 41. Her children had grown up and she missed children.

Her daughter Bronwyn Witt, 42, has been an early childhood teacher with the service for 20 years.

Granddaughter Emily Ellings, 24, who is completing her child- care diploma, started as a carer last February.

Emily herself came to the centre as a child when it was at Stewart St and her grandmother was working there as the cook for the 40-50 children.

"I remember Nan cooking in the kitchen and making me eat my lunch," Emily said.

There are now two cooks preparing up to 125 hot midday meals a day.Mrs Mills continued at Stewart St for 18 years.

"I absolutely adored it. All the children used to call me `Nan' even when they saw me in the street," she said.

Stewart Child Care Services had its beginnings in a temporary creche set up in two dressing rooms in the Albert Hall in November 1948.

The initiative came from the Launceston Pre School Centre Committee and its secretary Marjorie Parker (the late Dame Marjorie Parker).Tenancy of the two dressing rooms on Tuesdays and Fridays cost five shillings a room a day.

The creche then evolved through the Cameron St Creche, opening in June 1956, a second creche in the old Queen Victoria Hospital building, the Dame Marjorie Parker Creche in 1977, Stewart St Creche in 1979 and in 2000 the move to Watchorn St.

Renamed Stewart Child Care Services, it opened for business in Watchorn St, after extensive renovations, on May 1, 2000.

A 15-place annexe at Newstead College was opened in May 1998.

Chief executive officer Lyn Woolley has been at the centre for 20 years, witnessing major changes in the industry.

"In the early days, children were mostly dropped off for two to three hours while their mothers went shopping," she said. "Now some children can be here for 50 hours a week and very few mothers are not working.

"The centre employs about 32 regular staff for about 127 children and manages a payroll of $1 million.