Home caring: A lesson in tribal support

G’day. You couldn’t help but like Kaylene. But things weren’t easy for her.

Kaylene had a form of muscular dystrophy and she also had a house to run on her own and two young kids to rear, aged 4 and 2 and at that time there was no NDIS funding.

Kaylene was one of those special people who was always so positive even though she was no longer able to pick her children up and cuddle them.

But she still had a sense of fun and when the washing machine timer bipped attention, it was a race to see if her wheels could beat their growing legs.

One real challenge that had been causing Kaylene much grief was the fact that because she was deteriorating, soon her kids would be taken from her - she was unable to provide the everyday care nor could she take them to day care.

In today’s world of better in-home care and NDIS Kaylene no doubt would have received the necessary support to keep her kids, but not so then!

I’ve heard it said by one guru, that we only get roughly 6 original achievable thoughts in a life time. I don’t know what you’d count in your life so far, but Family Day Care was one of mine.

I heard about it when I was introducing Early Childhood Education into teacher training in Queensland. After meeting with Federal reps in 1974, we began the first Family Day Care scheme in that state and it went from strength to strength.

The reason it worked was that it had tribal authenticity. Potential carers were retrained so they could care for up to four neighbourhood children in their own home – more of a paid aunty concept. No need for big outlays of capital funds in building and recruiting; this scheme was as flexible as the community needed.

Anyhow enough about that but at that time, under a new pilot scheme, Family Day Carers received additional training, not to have kids come to their own home, but to go out and care for kids in the children’s own home.

In Kaylene’s case, debilitating illness was the qualifier but it could have been a myriad of special circumstances. The “in-home” program got enormous support all around the country and became a terrific model before more sophisticated models and funding came into being.

Looking back I realize that I couldn’t have free-wheeled my ideas like that without incredible support from friends and family. I also realize that while broad-brush operators like me are  proudly relating stories such as these, there are devoted parents, carers and grandparents who are achieving little miracles with families on a day to day basis and often against enormous odds and with very little encouragement. To all those humble heroes thank you - keep in mind that what you’re doing today is weaving strength into the fabric of that child’s life for tomorrow – a strength that will last a life-time.

BTW that in-home care gave Kaylene her dearest wish, to keep her kids at home for as long as she could. Both her children are now grown up and remember their mother very fondly. Strangely enough, they’re both working with families – one as a teacher, the other as a social worker. Kaylene’s legacy lives on!