The Sir John Reid Community Service Award is to recognise and honour persons in the Victorian community whose service to the community is judged to be worthy of special notice. The Award honours the contribution to the club of Sir John Reid a Past President, Paul Harris Fellow, recipient of the Vocational Service Award and member of the club from 1936 to 1984. Sir John, or Jock as he was known to his Rotary colleagues and friends, was noted for his service to the community throughout Australia. He was a generous and often anonymous benefactor of many young people and institutions.

The recipient of the award for 2005 is Mrs Jill Wain.

Jill has contributed some 30 years of service to the community as a foster parent and more recently as a worker in the field. Jill entered the child welfare sector initially as a foster parent and then trained as a social worker to become manager of the Melton Foster Care Program with The Salvation Army Westcare

Jill and her husband Greg have been foster parents for over 30 years. The philosophy of the Wain family is to provide a home for a child when and while it is needed and to provide the support required to return these children to their own family wherever possible.

Jill and Greg have provided a stable and secure environment, love and ongoing care and support for 4 foster children on a permanent care basis for more than 26 years. (Two have been adopted, one is on a permanent care order and the fourth in a long term foster care placement) In addition it is estimated that they have provided care and support through respite and short term placements to more than 50 children and their birth families. At one time this involved providing full time care to 6-month-old triplets. Through her work as a manager of Melton Foster Care, Jill has assisted more than 300 children and their families.

In her spare time Jill is mother to four children of her own and grandmother of three.

Jill left school after completing Form 4 and commenced an apprenticeship in dressmaking at Georges. Soon after she met Greg and they married and commenced a family. About ten years later with three children of her own, Jill first started to think about fostering. She and Greg talked about it for a while before discussing it with their children. The family all agreed that fostering would need to be a family decision and that it would not work unless they did it as a team. Over thirty years later Jill believes that a major challenge to the field of foster care is to maintain and develop caring teams, where all the active participants and their respective roles are acknowledged as vital to the overall care of the children and young people they care for.

After fostering for a few years Jill started to question what social workers studied and what they were being taught. Why did they use jargon that parents did not understand? And how was the system helping parents get their children back after they had taken them away? She enrolled in a Welfare Studies course full time for two years to try and gain an understanding of the other side of the situation. After completing the course she was not sure whether she was any the wiser, but she did understand the frustrations and the limitations that a working environment imposed. She continued her fostering and working in the wardrobe department of Channel O tending to the whims and demands of the cast of Young Talent Time and working on other TV productions.

In search of better understanding and insight into families Jill undertook further studies and gained a Diploma in Welfare Studies and was offered a job in a foster care agency in the northern suburbs. She then went on to complete a postgraduate qualification in Social Work. This interest in taking fostering a step further resulted in her being appointed to the position of manager of Melton Foster Care about 10 years ago. This position has been enabled her to put into practice her beliefs and philosophies learnt after 20 years direct experience as a foster carer.

The Melton Foster Care Program which was auspiced by the Salvation Army in 1995, started with 6 children and 6 carers, it now has 11 full and part-time staff, funding for 38 children in care on any one night and 24 carers. As manager Jill is regarded as a highly skilled carer and expert practitioner who is passionate and deeply committed to making a difference to the lives of children, young people and families. She works tirelessly to include birth families and maintain connectedness for children and young people.

On the home front, Jill and Greg recently completed redeveloping an old factory in North Melbourne as a home and after many years of sharing their bedroom with babies and young children are enjoying having a room of their own for the first time. The Wain family has had a minimum of 5 children staying under their roof on any night. At their previous home in St Kilda they leased the old stables next door which used to be part of the local dairy and converted them into a studio with a mezzanine area which made available accommodation for the older children so they were able to stay at home as well.

Jill Wain is a dynamic woman who, with her family, has made a significant difference to the lives of many children, teenagers and parents and is a very worthy recipient of the Sir John Reid Community Service Award.