Mindy Nelson had her first taste of soft-entry early intervention and prevention work during industry placement while studying at Griffith University.
Today she is the Program Team Leader at The Creche and Kindergarten’s “Family Place”, leading a multidisciplinary team to offer a suite of community programs to families in the Logan area.
“The Family Place is focused on providing soft-entry, universally-accessible early intervention and prevention practice for children and their families in Logan.”
Mindy graduated from Griffith in 2012 with a Bachelor of Education and a Bachelor of Child and Family Studies.
She spent her final Child and Family Studies placement with the Communities for Children program, joining the Family Empowerment team.
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After placement, she remained involved in a voluntary capacity, which led to being recruited upon graduation one year later to develop and facilitate The Family Place program, now located in Woodridge.
“This type of work really interests me, although I didn’t always plan to do community work,” she said.
“When I first decided to go to university, I wanted to be a teacher. I decided to enrol in the double degree and found that I enjoyed the social science courses the most.”
“I really enjoy working with people and seeing positive outcomes for families.”
Mindy said if it wasn’t for the industry placement component of her degree at Griffith, she might not be where she is today.
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Today, Mindy and her team give back by collaborating with the School of Human Services and Social Work, in order to develop a student hub to share the Family Place’s Framework of Practice with future practitioners.
“If anything, I think there should be more opportunities for placements,” she said.
“The more experience you can get to regularly apply your knowledge the better.”