Childcare worker

Working with children is a career in which the rewards far outstrip the challenges, according to childcare worker Michael Mastelero. Mastelero, 30, works at the Joey Club, a private childcare facility in Mascot for Qantas employees.

“Children are looking at you through the microscope all the time so every move or whatever you say every second of the day they are absorbing information,” he says. “It was scary at first, I never thought that it would be this hard.
But you can see the rewards straight away.”

Mastelero began working at the Joey Club in August last year looking after infants, but has since moved on to caring for two- to three-year-olds.

He says he enjoys working with the older children because he is engaged in their development.

“I love the interaction with children. You get to see them grow and apply what you have taught them,” he says.

Mastelero studied a diploma of children’s services at Nepean TAFE. The course was two years full-time and combined lectures with industry training. He has had work placement in a council-run centre, a community-based centre and at a centre that dealt with special needs children.

“You must love it and you must have a heart for teaching and caring for children; without that you won’t enjoy it,” Mastelero says. He adds that one of the biggest challenges is looking after the unsettled children.

“Usually children are a bit distressed when parents drop them over, they don’t want to see their parents leave. I empathise with the child. It is different for every child so that’s the hard part,”he says.

But it’s not only the children who have been learning while in Mastelero’s care. He says he has learnt a few tips from his little friends along the way too. “They have challenged me to take it to the next level which is to become an early childhood teacher.”

The difference between a childcare worker and an early childhood teacher is that a teacher can work with children up to age eight, and plan the curriculum.

Many NSW childcare workers have just been awarded a pay rise by the Industrial Commission.

How to be … a childcare worker
To become a childcare worker you usually have to complete a certificate or diploma course in child care. TAFE NSW offers a Certificate III or Diploma in Children’s Services. Contact Child Care NSW on 02 96879055 or visit childcarensw.com.au

By Erica Watson, The Daily Telegraph, March 11 2006.