Maureen's Family Day Care

Maureen was recommended to us by the director of a long day care facility that we visited, as she had sent her own son to Maureen. After our first visit to meet Maureen and see her place, we were sold and didn’t look any further. We loved the idea that it was such an intimate, homely environment and a small number of children as opposed to a busy centre where it feels like your child can get lost in the crowd. Our son started with Maureen when he was 15 months old and continued until we moved last year when he was 3.5 years. Right from the start, our son loved going to Maureen’s and it was clear that Maureen loves the children in her care. During seasons where our boy struggled a bit more with separation anxiety, Maureen was so kind and caring, and did all she could to make those transitions easier for him (and for Mumma). Some of the favourite activities she did with the kids were baking (I loved seeing the kids dressed up in their aprons & chef hats), picking fruit & veges from her garden, and playing in the rain in gumboots & raincoats. Maureen was also amazing at documenting the children’s journey using photos & videos on Storypark, something we miss now that we are at a bigger centre. We appreciated how Maureen made such an effort to incorporate learnings about different cultures, including those of the children she was caring for. Our son has Nigerian heritage and Maureen would borrow story books by Nigerian authors from the library to share those elements of culture with all the children. He also learned about the cultural background of his friends as well as Maureen’s own culture. Unfortunately, our son didn’t get to do many of the excursions to the park or playgroups, but a big portion of our time at Maureen’s was during COVID, so it was understandable that the outings had to be scaled back. And we see from following her Facebook that this has resumed with subsequent cohorts. We all miss Maureen since we have moved and our son still speaks of her fondly almost a year later. She will forever hold a special place in our hearts. Thank you Maureen for taking such good care of our precious son.