COMMUNITY WORK DIPLOMA HERE I COME

  During 1981 and 1982 I also began doing study at Tafe to get my Diploma in Community Work which was a new course and I was selected out of many to be able to do the course. It was hard being a single Mom and studying at the same time and having left school at fifteen it was hard to over come many of the assignments I had to do etc. Being a two year course I worked so hard to complete the course and felt so proud when I graduated and walked across the Festival Centre Stage in 1982.
  My best teacher who was in charge of the course was Stan Cameron-Fox who was the best teacher and mentor for me and he helped me allot. So sad he is no longer with us today. The course involved assignments, weekends camping out at various times and generally learning how to be like a social worker in the role of community. As part of my assignments I took in boys from a boys school (for boys with problems) and I would help them over a weekend. Like cooking and going out with my son as a family and generally teaching them how to live in society. I also became Coordinator at a Neighborhood House and ran various programs from self esteem to cooking and other types of home skills for men and woman. I remember painting the sign outside the Neighborhood House and feeling so proud I was part of a new house. It is still there.
While I was doing all this I was also trying to help my son who had learning problems and got him home help after school to help him and at weekends he would go to his father and grandmother and get utterly spoilt 
  After I graduated I got a job as a counselor with Jenny Craig who first opened in Adelaide in the 1980s. It was a crazy time as it was so popular in the USA and was now in Australia. I worked from 8am to after 10pm at night for around six months. It was so busy and I had to have Neb minded by my next door neighbor who had children and a brother around Nebs age and I  thought it was good for him to be with other children. This I found out later was not to be the best thing I ever did and I pay the price every day for that now?? ( More in story to come???)