Vicki Middlemis regain spark with SPARK childcare program

After leaving the workforce for more than a decade to raise her children, and without any formal qualifications, she felt she wasn't getting a look-in.

"I was pretty much too old for anything and I wasn't qualified," the Dunlop resident said.

"We were living on one wage. It was pretty tough."

The former nanny and mother of four had dreamt of working in childcare since she was a teenager.

So when a flyer turned up in her letterbox detailing the SPARK Childcare Pre-Employment Program she immediately picked up the phone to register her interest.

Almost a year later, armed with a Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care and a First Aid certificate after six months of study, an ecstatic Mrs Middlemis has found work at the Bruce Early Childhood Centre.

"You're someone's mum then all of a sudden you're somebody," she said.

"These kids make me so happy. It's all cuddles and things like that, happiness and smiles."

The community-based childcare program, run by SPARK Ginninderry with the Canberra Institute of Technology and Belconnen Community Service, targets people living in and near west Belconnen.

Seven of its eight graduates from the 2016 course have found work.

Ginninderry Training and Employment manager Emma Sckrabei said the program formed part of Riverview Developments' mission to make the Ginninderry development a community of more than bricks and mortar.

If it receives New South Wales government planning approval, Ginninderry will be built on farmland stretching from west Belconnen to Ginninderra Falls in New South Wales.

The final project will include 11,500 homes built at up to 400 a year over the next 30 to 40 years.