History

Founded and built in 1975 by the Franciscan Missionary Sisters under the business name of Del Giglio Incorporated with a capital grants agreement from the Commonwealth Government on 13 January 1975, St Francis eventually opened its doors in 1976.

On 23 July 1979 Management of the Centre was handed over to the Catholic Women’s League of South Australia Incorporated when the Franciscan Missionary Sisters were recalled back to Italy and from this date the childcare centre operated under the name of “St Francis Childcare Centre”.

On 10 March 1988, the centre changed its name to “St Francis Community Children’s Centre Incorporated”, this name remained for nearly 3 decades until the leaders of the service in early 2017 recognised the community business title did not represent the community accurately nor the heritage of the original custodians of the surrounding lands.

The then community were given the opportunity to share their opinions to a potential name change and share their thoughts of a title in which was respectful and represented them well.

After much community input the management settled on the suggestion of Little Para community Childcare Centre. The reasoning for this choice was based on the aboriginal heritage of the surrounding lands and suburbs titles. The community centre is located in Paralowie which derives rom two words ‘para’ meaning stream of water and ‘lowie’ meaning water. The boundary to the suburb Paralowie is the Little Para River which was a key source of life for the Aboriginal people of the lands.

On the 3rd of June 2017 the business name Little Para Community Childcare Centre was registered and continues to operate with the communities best interest in building and sustaining partnerships with families and children in the early years of life.