Janet Williams-Smith Early Childhood Services Manager
With qualifications in early years care and education, psychiatric nursing and family therapy, Janet has wide experience both in Australia and the UK designing, developing and managing programs and services for highly disadvantaged families and children at risk of abuse and neglect.
Janet comes to CPS after five years of working at the Brotherhood of St Laurence in the early year’s transition services running a children’s program with refugee children and families experiencing prolonged trauma and displacement.
She manages the CPS Early Years Programs which include the Integrated Early Education and Care Pilot, the Early Years Education Research Project (EYERP) and the Mentoring Mums Program. The primary aim of this work is early intervention and prevention focused on giving young children the very best opportunities to reach their full developmental potential.
The EYERP project will examine the effects of high quality early education and attachment-focused care giving on children’s overall, physical, social and emotional development. This is the first research study of its kind to be undertaken in Australia that will measure the long-term social and economic benefits of investing early in life and early in the pathway of emerging problems that lead to social exclusion and non-participation.