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A personal message from FDCA CEO Andrew Paterson.
With the passing of Cathy Bavage early on the morning of Sunday 21 September 2025, our sector lost one of its pioneers; a true leader and advocate, and to many including me, a colleague, mentor, and friend.
I first met Cathy back in late 2010. On the advice of many, a visit to meet Cathy Bavage and her Wynnum team was the logical first stop in my induction (or indoctrination) to family day care. Those who knew and loved Cathy can probably picture that first meeting, it’s one I will never forget – a little abrupt, challenging but inquisitive, and delivered with a classic tongue in cheek raise of the eyebrows and a generosity of spirit to share her knowledge and her wisdom, of which she had in spades.
From that day forward, through my 15 years and numerous roles with FDCA, including as CEO, Cathy was always a trusted confidant, even though, for much of that time, she referred to me as ‘kiddo’. Not many weeks went by without a call from Cathy with questions, ideas, suggestions, or just to say hi.
Cathy had a long and illustrious career in family day care. For close to four decades, she led the team at Wynnum Family Day Care, and in doing so, left a lasting legacy for children, families, her community, her team, and the sector. Wynnum was the first, and one of only a handful of family day care Services to achieve ACECQA’s Excellent Rating and was the inaugural winner of ‘Service of the Year’ in the FDCA Excellence in Family Day Care Awards. Throughout her time at Wynnum, Cathy was a mentor to countless Service colleagues that leaned on her insights in navigating the ever-changing and often challenging sector landscape. Cathy prided herself on her data driven management of the ‘business’ of family day care, but she never lost sight of her passion and motivation; a safe place for children, quality early education for a better future, and strong relationships, all of which she saw at the core of family day care.
Cathy was proudly innovative, often collaborating with stakeholders including academics, governments and agencies, peaks, and colleagues on projects and initiatives that explored distributed leadership, organisational change, business viability, quality, and technology. She was, among others, also a driver in the establishment of FDCA, and ultimately, after some persuasion, a Board Director where she provided invaluable insights across practice, policy, governance, and strategy.
My most sincere condolences to Cathy’s family and friends. She will be deeply missed by us all.
There are less than two weeks remaining for you to secure your ticket to the must attend event on the 2025 family day care calendar!
Whether you’re after the full conference experience, can only make it for one day or want to join the celebrations at the Gala Dinner, we have a range of ticket options designed to suit your needs.
You can purchase your tickets here.
Ticket options available:
FULL CONFERENCE PACKAGE
CONFERENCE ONLY PACKAGE
SATURDAY DINNER PACKAGE
SINGLE DAY TICKET
GALA DINNER TICKET
Developed as part of FDCA's suite of resources, the Educator and Family Communication Scripts support family day care educators to communicate clearly and confidently with families during the transition to Direct Gap Fee Collection (DGFC).
The resource provides:
The full suite of DGFC resources is available now on the Family Day Care Australia website.
On the back of the announcement of our Regional Educator winners, Star Award winners and National Finalists in the 2025 Excellence in Family Day Care Awards, we’re pleased to share a number of positive media stories that have been published.
The announcements of our Award winners sparked plenty of interest from media outlets from across Australia keen to speak with this year’s winners.
To view a listing of the stories that have already been published, click here.
As more articles come in, we encourage everyone to keep an eye on the FDCA website and Facebook page for more positive stories about family day care!
The Department is hosting an online grant-writing workshops on 25 September to help services prepare strong applications, where you can gain practical tips on:
For more information:
The Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) has developed a series of free eLearning modules designed to strengthen understanding of the National Quality Framework (NQF).
The third module in the series, NQF Induction 3: Law and Regulations, explores both Education and Care Services National Law and Regulations. It is a valuable tool for:
Key learning objectives include:
You can access the NQF Induction 3: Law and Regulations here.
The Australian Government Department of Education offers a range of self-paced courses through its online learning platform, Geccko. Geccko is tailored to the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector. Among the available courses is ‘Session Reports’.
This course has information about your obligations to accurately record and report sessions of care.
In the course, participants will learn how to:
All Geccko courses are self-paced and are accessible via tablet, computer, laptop or mobile phone. On completion, you can download a certificate for your professional development records.
To access this course or to find out more about other free online courses provided by Geccko, you can register here.
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