Noah’s Inclusion Services already had teams in Flinders (Shellharbour), Mundamia (West Nowra), Sanctuary Point and Ulladulla on the NSW South Coast but has now expanded to Batemans Bay, Moruya and Narooma following a merger with fellow Early Intervention Provider; ‘Muddy Puddles’.
Noah’s provides child development and child/family wellbeing services with around 20 programs, 100 staff, and 15 funding streams.
Muddy Puddles was established in 2014 and has had a collaborative relationship since its beginning, with some design features of its purpose-built facility based on Noah’s’ West Nowra premises.
Noah’s CEO Alice Lans says their relationship feels as though it’s come full circle:
“We formed a close bond with the Founders of Muddy Puddles who were desperate to see services in their area where there was clearly a gap.
“I attended their official opening and have stayed in touch throughout their journey.”
“Through 2023, Muddy Puddles and Noah’s had conversation with themes of viability and thriving at the core. Difficulties attracting staff to meet demand as a smaller regional organisation and the desire to diversify services were key parts of the discussions.”
“Their CEO Cate also felt a leader with a clinical background would assist in attracting and retaining allied health staff – so we put it to our boards.”
“In December 2023 the merger became official, and we have been working very closely with the community to make the transition as smooth as possible – recognising that every community is unique.”
Alice says the last few years have been difficult for providers of high-quality early childhood support services driven by best practice but expects that there are some efficiencies to be gained through scale as well as the benefit for children and families that comes from having more staff to share knowledge and skills:
“Having centralised business support, policies and procedures frees up regional team leaders to do what they do best and focus on the clinical delivery of services while also being able to offer more diverse services to meet the community need.”
“We see it as the best of both worlds – making an impact in your local community and being part of something bigger at the same time,” added Alice.
Alice started out her career as a Speech Pathologist and maintains her registration to this day.
She describes one of her greatest joys of the role is mentoring others:
“I did a stint teaching Clinical Education and I love taking on that mentoring role, seeing people grow into new pathways.
“We’ve supported many people to go from a Certificate 3 to a Diploma or pursue other studies and training.”
“We’ve had parents of children we’ve supported say ‘hey I think I’ve gained quite a few skills over this time’ and they’ve gone on to become Allied Health Assistants – it’s very rewarding to watch,” added Alice.
While any transition is not without its challenges, Alice said she is delighted that the far south coast community now have access to free programs, and we are hoping to continue to offer more.:
“We’ve already begun offering playgroups as part of our holistic support models and have had 6 new practitioners join since December.”
“We are determined to stay dynamic and positive – trying new things like ‘student partnerships’ to meet the demand for our services but also the needs of our team.”
“We believe that we have a great value proposition to be able to provide a supportive and vibrant workplace in a beautiful region, with meaningful work supporting the children and families in our community.” added Alice.
