During her career she has taken on the roles of a schoolteacher of children aged 5–7, childcare worker, teachers' college and university lecturer, and professor and dean of education.

Her father Cyril Bradwell was a returned serviceman, previously an accountant, who, after his wartime experiences, trained as a teacher, and did a master's degree in history.

The family moved to Kenya in 1951 when Mr Bradwell took up a position as a schoolteacher in an African boys' secondary school in Kisii.

While her parents easily returned to their former lifestyle, centred on teaching and the Salvation Army, Helen found it "very strange ... and somewhat constraining after my experiences in Africa".

From 1960 to 1963 she attended Riccarton High School, opened in 1958 to accommodate the post-war baby boomers reaching their teens.

They more than met their goal at our school - an indication of the lack of good long-term careers advice about what was possible for a young woman in the 1960s.

[4] She receiving her Trained Teacher's Certificate in 1966, and from then to 1974 taught classes mainly of 5 to 6-year-old children, in Auckland and Wellington, as well as spending 1971 - 1972 teaching in British infant schools, where she found:[4] Unlike New Zealand schools, where there were so few opportunities and role models for women, there was a complete career structure, and you could become a headmistress.

Helen's first child was born in 1974, 18 months after her return to New Zealand, and although she wanted to continue her teaching career, the reality was that in Wellington there was no childcare for babies.

She studied with Jan Pouwer, the foundation Professor of Anthropology at Victoria University who introduced his students to the structuralist analysis and dialectical thought of scholars such as Claude Levi Strauss and Michel Foucault.

The NZACCC,[8][9] set up in 1963 by a group led by Sonja Davies, had as its overall aim "to improve the quality of care and education for preschool children, by supporting centres and providing staff training."

In practice it liaised with Government agencies on aspects of legislation and funding for Child Care Centres, and provided an in-service training programme for childcare workers.

During this period she also became and the Convenor of Training, overseeing a considerable expansion in breadth, in depth and in Government funding for the programme.

[12] At the end of 1983 Helen left her marriage and Wellington and moved to Hamilton, where her new partner, and later husband, Crispin Gardiner was located.

She summarised her entry into this position:[4]At that stage [Hamilton Teacher's College was] only doing kindergarten training, and my background was childcare.

The college was reluctant to employ me, but I knew the world was about to change, and within a few months of being there the new three-year training was announced by the Lange Government.

[14] The responsibilities of the successful contractor were, in summary:[15] Helen and her colleague Margaret Carr (a Waikato lecturer also originally in the Hamilton Teachers' College) with the overwhelming support both Early Childhood organisations[16] and of Early Childhood academics developed a proposal and won the contract, which was signed in December 1990.

The fundamental structure of the curriculum was formulated biculturally by Margaret, Helen, Tilly and Tamati, and from there the Māori and English versions - which were parallel documents, not translations of each other - were developed.

There was broad support across the sector for this approach which celebrated diversity and the valued the professional knowledge of teachers and the contribution of family and community.