In March 1982, the CASS Board resolved an important position under the chairmanship of Henry, “Even without government funding, the founding aim of the Society, i.e. to provide child care service to the community, should still be realised.”
How could services be provided without funding? A group of enthusiastic and committed volunteers could be organised to take up the task. There were many such volunteers being involved in CASS.
The Board pondered on the question: What could volunteers do? What were the services that the community needed but would not require a lot of money to develop?
At that time, many young Chinese families were looking for caregivers to look after their children. However, there was not much information available, and parents did not know where to find suitable caregivers. On the other hand, many caregivers were looking for parents seeking care. CASS could provide a service to match the caregivers and the families!
The Directors understood that in Australia, caregivers looking after other people’s children had to abide by a set of Regulations. The service was called ‘Family Day Care’ (FDC). Caregivers had to be licensed to provide care legally. The government had regional agencies to manage the FDC service in the area.
The Society’s original plan was to set up a child care centre near Chinatown. Now that they had to change to FDC service, they needed to understand the different requirements. The Board thus approached Sydney Family Day Care which was managing the service in the Sydney city area. Their coordinator, Ms. Maureen Hastings, was enthusiastic and supportive of Henry’s ideas and the Society’s plan to develop service for the Chinese community. She provided the Directors with information and helped them to understand government’s requirements and regulations.
In July 1982, the Board resolved to provide a telephone referral service manned by volunteers to match parents in need of child care with caregivers wanting to provide child care service. The referral service was made possible through cooperation with Maureen Hastings.
A new question arose: where should the telephone be installed?
The Chairman of the Chinese Youth League (CYL), Mr. Peter Wong, was very supportive of the Society’s initiative to provide child care service and let the Society using their office venue free of charge to provide FDC service.
The team leapt into action. In the corner of the hall of CYL at 66A Dixon Street, Haymarket, a desk was set up and a telephone installed. The Society’s first service thus commenced operation.
The directors and volunteers promoted the service through putting up posters in Chinatown and distributing flyers. Radio 2EA (later became SBS Radio) also broadcasted the information.
As Sydney Family Day Care could only accept children and caregivers in the City of Sydney area, those residing outside the area would not be able to use the service. The original plan was to run this pilot project in the City of Sydney only.
However, when the news was released, requests for this service were received from all over Sydney. Calls from people residing around Chinatown were very few. Many Chinese were living in other areas of Sydney but went to Chinatown to buy groceries, etc. After receiving information about the child care service, many people rang our Society to enquire. The Society thus took up the role of ‘translating government policies, explaining cultural needs and facilitating communication between different parties”.
🤔Would the pilot project be acknowledged by the authorities? Stay tuned for the next article!
