My name is Julie, and I work at St Joseph’s Family Services.

I’ve been in childcare for ten years, with St Joseph’s for six of those years. I currently have a full-time diploma role in the preschool room and am a part-time room leader.

Working within St Agnes’ Parish, there are so many more doors opened up for you. Because we provide services in child care, aged care and everything in between.

The staff here all have their own personal stories, interests and things like that. We’re all bringing our unique skills to the table, everyone’s different, and everyone’s happy to share and collaborate and see what we want to work on implementing in each room.

We try to be inclusive and space other staff interests out across the rooms according to interests, what people are good at, what they want to learn about further, and what project groups they are on. We also have different project groups that we can get involved in, like policy groups, sustainability groups, and technology groups. Project groups allow staff to represent at special meetings and collaborate with the other St Agnes’ Parish services. This gives staff exposure to the broader St Agnes’ Parish projects, and staff can be involved regardless of qualifications. It’s a great experience. It allows staff to branch off into special interest areas and provides an opportunity to share and report back to the rest of the team what is happening in the other St Agnes Parish service areas.

My friendship circle outside of work includes many work people, I spend a lot of my time with them. We have a lot of fun while we are at work, and we support each other with everything that happens throughout the day. Everyone has each other’s back and really cares.

We all work together and want to have the best outcomes and make everything run smoothly and happily so everyone can have a good, fun day. So we try to help each other out where we can and support each other.

I keep looking at what I can do next and what else I can study because I want to keep learning and growing, which has all been due to opportunities here.