A Wellington mother caring for a child with special needs has warned that the town’s lack of childcare options could cause workers to move elsewhere in search of better conditions.
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Lisa Rowney, who has been struggling to find before and after school care for her three children that can also cater to her eldest son Cooper’s special needs, says that the situation has forced her to start looking to Dubbo for childcare options.
“I’ve honestly had to start looking at Dubbo, because I’ve tried family daycare and I need three spots, plus someone who can take care of special needs children and he can’t go on a bus by himself so they’d actually have to pick him up and there’s none around that have spots and can do that,” Ms Rowney said.
“There’s nothing here other than PCYC, but they have specific programs that he just doesn’t fit into.”
Ms Rowney already spends some of her time working in Dubbo due to her job as an aged and community care worker, but doesn't want to leave her home.
“It’s getting to the point where I have to think, ‘should I just move to Dubbo’? But, I love Wellington, the school is fantastic with special needs, I don’t want to just leave.”
The scheduling has become so strict and limiting, that Ms Rowney struggles to find time to arrange activities for other kids, and can only find a few hours a day in which to work at her regular job.
“I’m mainly at home with the kids, at the moment I’m doing two or four hours a day, if that, because it's the only time available to me to work including travel,” Ms Rowney said.
“Financially, it’s very hard, especially with such high needs and him needing specialist care, speech therapy, OT and psychology,” Ms Rowney said.
“We used to live on the Central Coast and we had before and after school care and respite care and we were able to do things as a family and Cooper showed great independence working with his care worker.”
“To be able to afford to pay for all these specialists that my son needs to have the best possible life, I need to be able to work more.”
Without more options, Ms Rowney says her and many others would be forced to leave their ‘beautiful little town’ and look elsewhere.
“If we don’t get the childcare, our workers are going to move. I’ve got friends who are nurses, and one of them is sending her kids on a bus to Dubbo to school because she needs that hour of those kids on that bus because she has no before school care,” Ms Rowney said.
“It’s just crazy.”
“The whole point of building the jail out here was to give people jobs, but right now there are people travelling from Orange to work in the correctional facilities here because they have access to childcare in Orange. It just astounds me that we don’t have that basic before and after school care program here at all.”
“My sister in law actually has her kids in three different family day-cares, so on Monday they’ll be in one place, on Tuesday they’ll be somewhere else because there’s nowhere that has spots for them full-time and she works in Dubbo, but she’s the same as me; it’s getting to the point where it’s upsetting the kids, and she’s wondering whether it’s easier to just move to Dubbo.”
Despite her harsh criticism for the current situation, Ms Rowney was very optimistic about the proposed plan from Maranatha House to provide a new childcare program from it’s facilities if they can secure funding.
“Not only before and after school care [is being offered in the Maranatha proposal], but also respite care,” Ms Rowney said.
“It also gives those children with special needs a bit of a break from their families and allows them that little bit of independence as well.”
“It’d be fantastic.”
