Kylie Streatfeild Manager of Orange District Early Education Program (ODEEP)

Kylie Streatfeild spends her days delivering a much-needed service for our community.

The Orange District Early Education Program, which she manages, works hand in hand with families of infants, pre-schoolers and primary school aged children who are having difficulty developing the skills they need to play, learn, talk, move and socialise.

Their vision is to see all young children with disabilities or delays fully included into our local community.

It is a diverse service and one that keeps Kylie and the management team busy.

“We are the only early intervention service in Orange that provides a transdisciplinary team of educators and allied health staff — we have 18 staff here,” said Kylie.

“Our service is for children aged between 0 and 12 years of age who have a developmental delay or a diagnosed disability. We provide early intervention in the areas of special education, speech pathology, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, dietetics and family support.”

Kylie has been with ODEEP for over 13 years as a family support worker and assistant manager. She took over as manager 12 months ago and enjoys the challenges the job presents.

“I suppose it is a very different role, not working directly with families day-in, day-out, but I really enjoy the management side of the organisation. I enjoy being able to look at community needs and gaps and then working out how as an organisation we can meet them. I enjoy being able to look at early intervention models, best practice early intervention therapies and strategies and implementing those for the families and communities of Orange,” she said.

“I get to meet and engage with lots of different families on a day-to-day basis; talking to families, giving them information about how we can support them in their day to day life with their child… I look at organising service provision, coordinating the different types of services they choose. That might be here at the centre or we might be in their homes, childcare centres or pre-schools. If a family needs help with their little one while out in the community to access services or activities, we can help in that way as well.

“We also have four playgroups running — two in Orange, one in Blayney and one in Canowindra —based on the Parents as Teachers model. It’s about teaching parents how to develop their children further, getting their skills ready for pre-school and school and those programs are available for the whole community.

“So, it is a very diverse range of activities and programs to manage across our staff. It definitely keeps me busy, but it's interesting and I suppose I enjoy being able to provide families with a range of things they can access to help their child develop.”