Celebrating 10 Years of Tammy Cairnduff and Her Lasting Impact on Mobile Service
Some people leave a mark through one grand moment. Tammy Cairnduff has done it through 10 years of steady care, practical problem-solving, fierce advocacy and deep connection with rural communities.
This year, River Region Early Education is delighted to celebrate Tammy’s 10 years of service and recognise her extraordinary contribution to our Mobile Service. Her work has helped shape a service that is trusted, resilient and deeply valued by the children, families, educators and communities it supports.
A decade of care, leadership and commitment
Tammy began with the Mobile Service as a teacher in 2016. From the start, she brought warmth, skill and a clear commitment to children’s learning and wellbeing.
In 2018, she stepped into the role of Nominated Supervisor. It is a role that asks a great deal of a person. It calls for strong knowledge of early childhood education, calm decision-making, careful compliance work, support for educators, communication with families and the ability to keep many moving parts working at once.
Tammy has done all of that, and more.
Across her time in the role, she has advocated tirelessly for the Mobile Service, its children, families and educators. She has helped guide its growth and has played an important part in its ongoing success. Celebrating 10 Years of Tammy Cairnduff and Her Lasting Impact on Mobile Service is really a celebration of what steady, values-led leadership can achieve over time.
Growing a service across many communities
Under Tammy’s leadership, the Mobile Service has grown the number of children, families and educators it supports. That growth has taken care, planning and a deep understanding of the communities the service visits.
Mobile early childhood education is unlike a service based in one purpose-built centre. Each venue is different. Each community has its own needs, routines and strengths. Each day can bring a new practical challenge before the learning program even begins.
Tammy has helped the service meet those challenges with confidence. She has led the Mobile Service through Assessment and Rating, supported the establishment and licensing of new venues, and worked through the complex compliance requirements that come with delivering high-quality early childhood education across multiple community spaces.
None of those venues were built specifically as early childhood services. That means every improvement, every safe setup and every workable system has needed thought, skill and persistence.
Advocacy that changed working conditions
Tammy’s contribution has not only been about service growth. She has also been a strong and persistent advocate for her team.
Her work has contributed to meaningful improvements in working conditions, including:
An incentive pay rate to better recognise the demands of Mobile Service work
Paid stand-down periods that support educators through the realities of the service model
Manual-handling improvements that make daily work safer and more practical
Hydraulic change tables at every venue to support both educators and children
These changes matter. They show what happens when leadership listens closely to the realities of the job and keeps pushing for better ways to support staff.
For educators working across different sites, often with equipment, setup demands and changing conditions, practical improvements are not small details. They shape the quality of the day. They protect wellbeing. They help educators focus on what matters most, children.
The challenges no position description could capture
Then there are the parts of the job that no Nominated Supervisor position description could ever fully explain.
Over the years, Tammy has somehow helped keep the Mobile Service operating through snakes, power outages, no water, dead animals, non-functioning air conditioners, escaped farm animals, and drovers blocking venue entrances and exits.
For most services, any one of those issues would be a memorable disruption. For Mobile Service, they have become part of the story.
What stands out is not just that Tammy found ways through these situations. She brought creativity, patience, determination and a wonderful sense of humour. Those qualities have helped steady the team and keep the service moving, even when the day did not go to plan.
Relationships at the centre of the work
The strongest part of Tammy’s legacy is found in the relationships she has built.
Across the communities visited by the Mobile Service, Tammy has formed beautiful and lasting connections with children and families. Her commitment has helped ensure the service is not simply something that arrives in a community. It is something that belongs there.
Families know when a service understands them. Children know when educators are genuinely glad to see them. Communities know when people keep showing up, year after year, with care and respect.
Tammy has helped create that sense of trust.
Her leadership has supported a service where children can learn, play and build confidence in familiar community spaces. It has helped families access quality early childhood education closer to home. It has also supported educators to do meaningful work in settings that call for flexibility, resilience and heart.
A heartfelt thank you to Tammy
Ten years is a significant milestone. In Tammy’s case, it represents far more than time served.
It represents thousands of kilometres travelled, countless setups and pack-downs, hard conversations, joyful moments, compliance tasks, problem-solving on the spot and relationships built with care. It represents leadership that has strengthened a service and improved the experience of the people within it.
On behalf of River Region Early Education, we recognise and thank Tammy Cairnduff for her extraordinary contribution to the Mobile Service.
Her dedication, advocacy and humour have helped build something lasting. The Mobile Service is stronger because of her, and so are the communities it supports.
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