What does a relief child care educator mean?

[emilyl]

Hi everyone,
I'm not too sure what a relief child care educator means.
After the interview, I was asked if I would accept to be a relief staff.
Is there any difference between a casual staff and a relief staff in a child care centre?

In my previous workplace, working as casual base means fixed days throughout the whole week.
But does a relief staff have any set hours during the whole week?

Many thanks for helping

[Lorina]

Ok from what I understand if you are working as a relief staff then you get a fixed amount of hours during the week. For example, you could be working a lunch time shift 12pm - 2pm for the week for a set amount of time. I think the only difference with being a relief staff is, you'll always be first choice for that specific centre in relation to someone calling in sick, someone going on holidays etc). I'm pretty sure as a relief staff member you should be given a set amount of hours during the week.

As for being a casual, the centre can ask you to work 1 or 2 days a week or just for a couple of hours. You won't normally be given a set number of hours to work during the week and you normally move from one centre to another throughout the week and you're typically employed by an agency.

It sounds like at your other centre you were more of a relief staff member.

Hopefully this doesn't confuse you,

,
L.A

[emilyl]

Hi L.A,
Thank you very much for answering my question.
I completed CerIII in TAFE and work experience in day care centre recently. I love working with children and I am truely passionate about child care, that's why I chose to study the qualification of Cert III. But I worked in another industry before I studied Cert III, so I didn't have any emplyment history in a child care. However, based on my experience of Cert III placement only, I found that it's not easy for me to find a job . Now I'm thinking to try to find a position of diploma trainee, because I was told that I don't need to do CertIII traineeship. But I'm not too sure how to find a diploma traineeship.