Here is some history of our centre.

The Sanctuary Point Children’s Centre has been open and ready to meet the needs of children and families since 1986. Local families and parents involved with the school campaigned to get the centre established. The Shoalhaven City Council built the centre. The centre was designed to cater for 40 children, babies, toddlers and preschoolers; to be able to provide for their care and education, and to meet the needs of the community and working families. The centre originally was managed by a local Parent Committee, and in 2004 Illawarra Area Child Care were invited to come and become the over arching management body. The centre has evolved, over time, to better meet the needs of the community and to adjust to changes in Regulations and Government requirements, and to achieve a high Accreditation Standard.

The centre has a cook that prepares fresh, healthy meals for the children each day. We also have a mixed age range of staff. Families appreciate that the staff tend to stay on for extended periods, enabling them to develop knowledge, understanding and trust in the people they are allowing to care for their children. Some of our original and past children are now bringing along children of their own to the service. The staff are all trained or training on the job. The staff have great access to networking with other services and excellent training is provided to keep us all up to date with current best practise. The centre reflects the local environment and has large well developed outdoor play areas for the country children, who use the service. Sometimes possums even come into the garden and nibble our veggies, and children are delighted when kangaroos graze in the adjacent laneway. Our 0-3 year old group are called the Joeys, and when they turn 3; they transition to the Kangaroo’s Room, the 3-5 year old group. Each group has their own room, age appropriate resources and playground.

The centre is “community-based” and a not-for-profit service, which enables us to prioritise higher ratios of adults to children and to have more trained staff, than the minimum requirements.

The centre is open to all children and families and endeavours to meet the needs of all, by designing individual and group programs. The service provides consistent staffing to enable the children and families to feel safe and secure. We encourage the children and families to feel like they ‘belong’ and are a part of the centre and local community. We build relationships with the local businesses, services (clubs) and schools, and we support each other. We take the children on excursions into the local community (i.e. to the local nursery and buy seedlings to plant in our veggie garden, and into Nowra to celebrate Harmony Day with other children). We run a comprehensive Preschool program and provide a great ‘Transition to School’ Program involving both in-house activities and external activities.

We are fortunate to be a part of the local Sanctuary Point Community and to have Management with such experience, expertise and excellent training facilities.