School Age Care Services
History
The Queensland Police Citizens Youth Welfare Association (QPCYWA) was founded as a public company on the 20th May 1948. The Association has grown and in 2007 the 45th branch began operation, in Cloncurry, to further provide activities to over 75,000 members across Queensland.
Initially, School Age Care services operated from just a few of the branches, with Beenleigh PCYC providing the service for over 20 years. Over the last few years the number of branches providing School Age Care has reached 65 venues at the end of 2007.
With the introduction of Child Care Benefit to help subsidise the fees, National Accreditation of School Age Care services to monitor quality and state licensing, we have seen a growth in the number of quality programs we are offering to children and families across the state.
All of our services partake in the OSHCQA system operated by the National Childcare Accreditation Council. We currently have 58 centres who have been through the system. All have achieved high quality profiles.
At PCYC we value our staff and so provide a range of training opportunities across the state. We have run a State PCYC Child Care Conference for the last four years for staff to attend from across the state. From 2008 this conference will run every two years with regional workshops operating in the interim years.
Our services run from both PCYC branch sites as well as from local schools. All children using our services are required to become PCYC members. Children are also encouraged to utilize our PCYC branches and attend the other activities offered by the clubs. Many of the children will attend extra classes whilst attending our programs, such as martial arts, gymnastics, and dance classes.
The presence of the branch manger, a police sergeant, enables children to build a trusting relationship with them. They get to spend time with police officers both in their formal uniform as well as their PCYC uniform. We encourage the children to be involved in our crime prevention programs. The older children are encouraged to join our Youth Management teams once they leave our programs.