The Mount Gambier resident has volunteered with the Department for Child Protection for almost three years, transporting children to school, access visits with family members and appointments.
“I get so much fulfilment out of it – I love it,” Jane says.
“I feel like they’re doing just as much for me.”
During National Volunteer Week (20-26 May), the department is recognising the vital work of about 180 volunteers, who provide support for children, carers, families and social workers.
Along with offering an important transport service, volunteers assist children with homework support, help them with their Life Story Book (memory scrapbooks) and support them at special events.
Jane transports children of all ages, but says she especially enjoys working with teenagers, who she describes as “salt of the earth, and our future”.
“Because I come from a big family, I can draw on all the experiences from people in my family and encourage them,” the 65-year-old says.
For example, she has enjoyed getting to know a young man who she encouraged to study a trade, and watching him become very interested in a future working as an electrician.
“He’s decided all these steps he wants to do in his life and he wants to do them before he’s 30,” Jane says.
“He’s also talking about having his own business. It was really exciting to hear him talking like that.”
Another special moment for her was transporting a baby to his carer’s home, and witnessing the connection he shares with the carer and her other foster children, now adults, who still visit the carer just as any other siblings would visit their mother.
“They still go out to their foster parent's house – that’s their mother and their children’s grandmother. They were fighting over him (the baby), to get the first cuddle,” she says.
“It gives you a bit of hope that the world’s not all bad.”
For more information on volunteering, visit the Department for Child Protection.
This story was prepared by the Department for Child Protection and is republished with permission.
