Wanita Smith of Forbes Community Out of School Hours Care has been recognised for her dedication to care.
At the recent Central West Early Childhood Awards in Orange, Wanita was awarded Outstanding Out of School Hours Educator for 2024.
Wanita said winning the award was a big win as it also brought knowledge about out of school hours care.
"Everyone knows about long day care but not many people know about out of school hours care, so it was good to get people to realise that this service is in Forbes and there are many around the region as well," Wanita said.
"It's also good for the educators who work in out of school hours to be recognised for what they do because it is a challenge sometimes but it is a great job to have."
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Wanita is the Forbes Community OSHC Coordinator and runs after school care as well as vacation care.
"It's for the primary school kids that need care in the afternoons while parents are still working," she said.
"We're a really good service in-between school and home for after school care, we have around 20 kids every day and more in vacation care during the school holidays.
"We provide these services to the community and we've been doing it for nearly nine years now so we've built up a really good rapport with the community as well which is nice."
Wanita's favourite part of her job is spending time with the kids - and it's so much more than supervising them.
"I love just spending time with them, they have so much of an innocence to talk about things and listening about their day and all the things they have done at school and then we help them with some of their questions that they have," she said.
"We do a lot of mental health work with our kids here, we have a couple of programs in place here for helping with their wellness," Wanita added.
Wanita is passionate about out of school care being on the Board of Directors for Networks and Communities which is the peak body for out of school hours care in NSW.
"They do a lot of the advocacy between the services and the government and they provide professional development specifically for our sector of child care," she said.
"I'm very passionate about OSHC and I speak up about it a lot and make sure it's looked after."
Wanita was on the Board of Directors last year and stepped down this year but is making a return to the board.
"It was a really good achievement for me because it was really good networking for knowing what's happening in the industry and in the sector and we can get our voices heard about our services and what we do and how special we are."
Wanita was recently asked to join the Board of Directors again they need people who are vocal about the sector and Wanita is passionate about OSHC.
"I'd also like to thank Central West Early Childhood Awards for recognising all our educators, in all different areas of childcare," Wanita added.
