Karratha Occasional Care

Karratha, Western Australia

This program is managed by 1 part time co-ordinator and 1 part time child care assistant and is based in Karratha , Western Australia and serves the surrounding area. The program was established to service the booming mining and oil/gas industries where construction workers and their families were housed in caravan parks.

At that time Frontier Services employed a Caravan Park worker to provide support to families and an offshoot of that ministry was the provision of a small child-care program within the Rosemary Road Caravan Park .

With the goodwill of the Caravan Park that provided the space and funding from the Australian Government, support was provided to many of the long-term families living in the parks.

At the end of 1998, the Caravan Park was converted from a residential park to a tourist park. The amenities were upgraded and the recreation room in which the child-care service operated was demolished due to a structural problem in a wall. The child care service was then relocated to Karratha Family Centre where it now operates side-by-side with long term day care. Although operating in the Karratha township it still offers priority placement to children in caravan parks.