What We Do

Brimbank Preschool Association Inc (trading as BPA Children’s Services) is a not-for-profit Early Years Manager that was established in 1998. BPA Children’s Services (BPA) works in partnership with parent committees and Parent Advisory Groups (PAG) to manage Kindergartens and Child Care Centres in the Western Suburbs of Melbourne. BPA aims to take the hard work out of being on a Kindergarten/ Long Day Care Centre parent committee/PAG, and to provide a stable professional employment environment for staff. Parent committees/PAG’s still get to have a say, but are not required to be fully responsible for all legal and financial requirements of running a children’s service.

In brief, BPA is responsible for:

  • Proprietorship, Management and Co-ordination of the Centre, including employment of all staff.
  • The legal (including regulatory) responsibilities of the Centre.
  • The completion of all paperwork required by the Department of Education (DE) to satisfy the funding agreement.
  • Ensuring the financial viability of the Centre (i.e. funding, fee collection, chasing bad debts, budgets, paying of accounts, etc).
  • Provision of a full financial service, including a comprehensive payroll system.
  • Provision of a resource and support service for all centres within BPA.

The role of the parent committee/Parent Advisor Group (PAG) is to work with BPA to assist in decision making and to ensure that centres continue to provide the best possible educational program to the children who attend.

BPA provides professional leadership and centralised management of kindergarten and long day care services in the western suburbs of Melbourne.

BPA Children’s Services is committed to the right of every child to have access to quality early childhood educational programs. BPA believes that the principles of equity, access, cultural relevance and safety must be developed and implemented for the benefit of the children and their families, participating in these programs.

    Child Safeguarding

    BPA is committed to the implementation of the Child Safe Standards throughout the organisation to ensure that children are safe and protected. BPA is committed to the rights of all children to feel safe and be safe at all times, including:

    • promoting the cultural safety of Aboriginal children.
    • promoting the cultural safety of children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
    • promoting the safety of children with a disability.
    • promoting the (right to) safety of trans and gender diverse children and their families in ECEC settings.
    • ensuring that LGBTIQ+ children and families feel included.

    BPA values, respects and cares for children and fosters opportunities for each child to participate, express their views and to learn and develop. We always act in the best interests of each child and take all reasonable steps to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of children at all times, whilst also promoting their learning and development.

    BPA actively manages the risks of abuse or harm to each child, including fulfilling our duty of care and legal obligations to protect children and prevent any reasonable/foreseeable risk of injury or harm. We want to ensure that we continuously improve the way our services identify risks and respond to child abuse, and encourage reporting and improved responses to allegations of abuse.

    Our staff undertake Child Safety training on an annual basis and embed child safety into the programming and practices at all of our centres.

    For further information on our Child Safe policy and procedure please click on this link.

    Curriculum

    All BPA centres provide a high quality developmentally appropriate program based upon the principals and practices of both the National and Victorian Early Years Learning Frameworks. The program is developed in consultation with BPA and the parents of children attending the centre, and are responsive to the needs of the community. Centre policies and practices are guided by the ACECQA National Quality Standards and are reviewed on a regular basis.

    For more information about our Creative Arts Curriculum please click on this link.

    Management Team

    Deborah BriggsChief Executive Officer

    Deborah Briggs is the Chief Executive Officer of BPA Children’s Services. Deborah has been in the CEO role since July 2022 but has worked within the early childhood sector for more than 18 years.

    Deborah began with BPA back in 2005 as a kindergarten assistant and has worked in various roles across the organisation. Deborah previously worked for local and state government departments in Information Management, but was drawn to early childhood when her second child attended kindergarten.

    Deborah is passionate about early childhood and committed to ensuring that BPA’s mission and core values are upheld. Deborah takes great pride in knowing that the organisation strives for inclusiveness, quality, integrity and collaboration, ensuring the right of every child to have access to quality early childhood educational programs.

    Deborah is excited about the challenges ahead, and looks forward to leading the organisation into the future.

    Esther Ho – Chief Financial Officer

    With over 15 years’ strategic financial management experience, Esther was appointed as the Chief Financial Officer at BPA in 2023.

    Community minded, yet commercially focused, she has gained broad experience and proficiency in managing financial operations in large and complex environment in Vocational Education, At Home Care, Residential Aged Care and diverse group of disability services (Supported Independent Living, Allied Health, Special Education, Early Childhood Intervention).

    Esther sees herself as a “modern-day detective” rather than a stereotypical number cruncher or bean counter. Her experiences mirror those of investigators searching for root causes of problems, apply solutions and making strategic recommendations that affect businesses in a multitude of ways.

    Being a strong advocate in child protection and early childhood education, Esther believes all children should have equal access to quality health care and education. She is determined to grow with caused-based organisations like BPA to achieve sustainable results and make a positive difference in people’s life.

    Esther received her Bachelor Degree in Social Science (Sociology), Master Degree in Commerce (Accounting) and is a Certified Practising Accountant (CPA). As part of her continual professional development, she completed the Executive Education Program (Performance Measurement for Effective Management of Nonprofit Organisations) at Harvard University in Boston.

    Sarah O'Kelly – Early Year's Partnerships Manager

    Sarah has over 27 years experience in the Early Childhood sector, and has worked across a number of sessional kindergartens in the Western suburbs of Melbourne before joining the BPA Early Years team, firstly as an Early Years Advisor, then she was appointed to the BPA Executive.

    Sarah’s experiences as a kindergarten teacher has provided her with an indepth understanding of the local communities that BPA works within, and empowered her to have a strong influence in shaping the future direction of the organisation.

    Sarah’s role as Early Years & Partnerships Executive enables her to work closely with the Early Years Teams in each of the four local government areas that BPA are located within, and engage in initiatives that support her commitment to providing vulnerable children with high quality early childhood programs.

    Anita Burich – HR Manager

    Anita is a HR professional with over 25 years’ experience across numerous industries from professional services including Legal, Engineering and Accounting as well as industry-based roles. Prior to joining BPA, Anita worked at a secondary college for 6 years and commenced at BPA in 2021 as a Human Resources Manager.

    Anita has qualifications in Human Resources, Career Development and is currently studying Counselling. Anita is responsible for the overall human resources function, including operational and strategic direction.

    Nina Sutton -Risk and Compliance Manager

    After completing a Bachelor of Education and Graduate Diploma in Health Sciences, Nina worked in the Disability Sector for over thirty years including as an allied health professional for vision impaired and blind people, then autistic children. Before joining the BPA Children’s Services Team, Nina worked with an early intervention service provider as Director of Operations. She led the registration of this service with the National Disability Insurance Agency and has had years of experience in applying legislative and other compliance requirements to ensure safe and high quality service provision.

    As Risk and Compliance Manager, Nina will be tasked with ensuring best practice education services are provided in a safe environment with effective governance and the highest health and safety standards deliverable.

    Rachel Black -Operations Manager

    Rachel is an Early Childhood professional with over 20 years’ experience in Long Day Care and Kindergarten education. Rachel worked in various roles across a number of different Long Day Care settings in both Victoria and Queensland before joining the team at BPA at the beginning of 2011.

    Rachel worked for over 10 years as an Early Years Advisor with BPA before moving into the role of Operations Manager in 2022. Rachel’s experience has given her extensive experience working with children from 6 weeks to school age from a variety of different backgrounds.

    Rachel holds an Advance Diploma of Children’s Services. Rachel is responsible for the daily operations of each service including ensuring that regulations, policies and procedures are adequately met at all times.

    Board Members

    Amber Brodrick – President
    Tim Linke – Vice President
    Eamon O’Hare – Treasurer
    Courtney Pelle – Secretary
    Lee Cameron – General Member
    Wendy Seidler – General Member
    Jason Giordmaina – General Member
    Rebecca Arias Galea – General Member