Promising Practice Profiles by topic - Issue
Early literacy/language development
- Organisation: Hume City Council through a partnership between Hume Library Service, Hume Family and Childrens Services and the Hume Early Years Partnership
- Key activity: Outreach literacy development for children of isolated CALD families.
- Organisation: Westside Circus Incorporated, Fitzroy, Melbourne VIC
- Key activity: Provides a series of 10-week circus and literacy workshop programs with parents and children to learn new games, circus activities, performance skills and social skills.
- Organisation: Therapy Focus Inc
- Key activity: Development of oral language and literacy concepts for preschool children.
- Organisation: Upfield and Campbellfield Heights Primary Schools, Broadmeadows Communities for Children (Melbourne, Vic)
- Key activity: Oral language sessions.
- Organisation: Circular Head Rural Health Services, Smithton (Tasmania)
- Key activity: A home-based, early childhood program for pre-school children aimed at building parental strengths so their child can start school with a positive attitude.
- Organisation: Frankston Library Service (Melbourne, VIC)
- Key activity: Collaborative partnerships to engage 'hard to reach' families in early literacy activities. (i.e. Immunisation of children at the health clinic is used as a "stepping stone" to introduce families to reading and books).
- Organisation: KU Children's Services (formerly known as the Kindergarten Union of New South Wales), Sydney, NSW
- Key activity: Augmenting the knowledge and skills of early childhood staff to foster children"s language and literacy development in low-income families.
- Organisation: Casey-Cardinia Library Corporation (Melbourne, VIC)
- Key activity: Library outreach to kindergartens, playgroups and child care centres.
- Organisation: Mt Lockyer Primary School, WA
- Key activity: Community Hub - Closing literacy and numeracy gaps between Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal children.
- Organisation: Ravenswood Early Learning Centre, Launceston (Tasmania)
- Key activity: A pre-school based early intervention program for hard-to-reach, educationally 'disenfranchised' families.
School readiness
- Organisation: Uniting Care Wesley, Port Adelaide (SA)
- Key activity: Around About is a specialised 8-week program for preschoolers (3 and 4-year olds) and their families concerned with the transition into childcare, kindergarten or school.
- Organisation: Melbourne Citymission
- Key activity: Child Care Info Connect is a parent education and support program which operates within child care centres.
- Organisation: Anglicare Victoria
- Key activity: Connected Families—Strong Communities aims to increase communityawareness that the children of families who work well with the school have better outcomes, and stay at school longer. It is based on partnerships between the school, families and community organisations to improve opportunities and outcomes for young people and their families.
- Organisation: NSW Department of Education and Training
- Key activity: Transition to school program.
- Organisation: Ravenswood Early Learning Centre, Launceston (Tasmania)
- Key activity: A pre-school based early intervention program for hard-to-reach, educationally 'disenfranchised' families.
Parenting skills
- Organisation: St Joseph's Family Services, Port Macquarie (NSW)
- Key activity: A coordinated parent/carer support program to reduce isolation, strengthen and build parenting and relationship skills and support networks.
- Organisation: Communities for Children with Uniting Care Wesley Port Pirie as the Facilitating Partner Organisation
- Key activity: Supporting parent group activism.
- Organisation: Northern Gold Coast Communities for Children Project, Oxenford Coomera Community Youth Centre (South-East Queensland)
- Key activity: Aims to ensure that all families in the Northern Gold Coast community have access to a range of responsive services, supports, education, skills training and relationships.
- Organisation: Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC) Parramatta (Sydney), NSW
- Key activity: Early learning and care for families with children who have hearing and/or vision loss and require specialist early intervention.
Early preparation for parenting, targeting high-risk groups
- Organisation: Project undertaken by Menzies Inc - Peninsula Health, Frankston (Melbourne) VIC
- Key activity: Indigenous pre-parenting primarily life education program aimed at youth aged 14-17 years.
Fostering positive parent-child relationships
- Organisation: Westside Circus Incorporated, Fitzroy, Melbourne VIC
- Key activity: Provides a series of 10-week circus and literacy workshop programs with parents and children to learn new games, circus activities, performance skills and social skills.
- Organisation: Melbourne Citymission
- Key activity: Child Care Info Connect is a parent education and support program which operates within child care centres.
- Organisation: Family Life
- Key activity: As part of a holistic response to families experiencing stress and are at risk of family breakdown, the “Keith Street” Community House incorporates a range of programs for parent support, volunteering and social connections. A critical centrepiece is developing informal networks and community connections to facilitate sustainable change for families and improved outcomes for children.
- Organisation: NT Christian Schools Association (in partnership with Anglicare NT's East Arnhem Communities for Children)
- Key activity: Early intervention/prevention program to strengthen family functioning and build protective factors in children.
- Organisation: Uniting Care Wesley Adelaide (facilitating partner), Centacare (community partner)
- Key activity: Little Engines Early Childhood Education professionals act as co-workers and mentors for staff from community agencies to increase their capacity to offer free supported playgroups for disadvantaged children 0-5 years. The playgroup model includes a community development focus that offers families access to a wide range of services through co-worker/co-facilitator partnerships with local social workers, health professionals and other support workers providing extensive support to families.
- Organisation: Mt Lockyer Primary School, WA
- Key activity: Community Hub - Closing literacy and numeracy gaps between Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal children.
- Organisation: Kangaroo Island Children's Services
- Key activity: Parent training sessions and workshops on: issues affecting families, strategies for making the family unit stronger, and engaging fathers in parenting education.
- Organisation: The Benevolent Society, NSW
- Key activity: Uses centre-based children's services to foster relationships between children and caregivers (parents and teachers), and to enhance children's social and emotional development; also provides support for isolated parents in this disadvantaged community.
- Organisation: SDN Children's Services (formerly Sydney Day Nursery)
- Key activity: Parenting support for socio-economically marginalised and at risk families.
- Organisation: SDN Children's Services Inc (formerly Sydney Day Nursery)
- Key activity: Provision of information, advice and support for parents with young children aged 0–8 in Sydney’s south-west who are accessing the SDN Family Resource Centre’s toy/resource library.
- Organisation: Playgroup Association of Queensland
- Key activity: A music therapy early intervention strategy for parents of young children.
- Organisation: Centacare Wilcannia Forbes, NSW
- Key activity: Supports young, teenage mothers to increase their skills and confidence in parenting, as well as to re-engage with education and community services relevant to their needs.
- Organisation: Communities@Work - ACT
- Key activity: Family mentoring program.
- Organisation: St Vincent de Paul Society (In partnership with Victorian Cooperative on Children’s Services in Ethnic Groups, Uniting Care Sunshine Mission, and Adult Multicultural Education Services)
- Key activity: Sunshine Learning Together is a dual generation learning program for parents who want to learn English and who have preschool age children. There are three components to the program: culturally appropriate early learning and activities for 0–5s; simultaneous English language tuition for the mothers; a follow-on parent–child program attended by both the mother and her children.
- Organisation: Lady Gowrie Child Centre - Adelaide, SA
- Key activity: A collaborative model of early intervention and prevention providing intensive psychosocial support, therapeutic intervention and childcare as a package for high risk families in order to improve secure attachment outcomes for young children.
Father engagement
- Organisation: Relationships Australia, New Town (Hobart), Tasmania
- Key activity: Building service/client relationships and improving service responsiveness to meet the relationships needs of African Tasmanian communities.
- Organisation: NSW Department of Education and Training
- Key activity: Transition to school program.
- Organisation: Kangaroo Island Children's Services
- Key activity: Parent training sessions and workshops on: issues affecting families, strategies for making the family unit stronger, and engaging fathers in parenting education.
Understanding early child development and pre-school learning needs
- Organisation: Uniting Care Wesley, Port Adelaide (SA)
- Key activity: Around About is a specialised 8-week program for preschoolers (3 and 4-year olds) and their families concerned with the transition into childcare, kindergarten or school.
- Organisation: NT Christian Schools Association (in partnership with Anglicare NT's East Arnhem Communities for Children)
- Key activity: Early intervention/prevention program to strengthen family functioning and build protective factors in children.
- Organisation: Australian Supported Parenting Consortium - Parenting Research Centre (lead agency) and the University of Sydney
- Key activity: Supports parents with learning difficulties.
- Organisation: Circular Head Rural Health Services, Smithton (Tasmania)
- Key activity: A home-based, early childhood program for pre-school children aimed at building parental strengths so their child can start school with a positive attitude.
- Organisation: Lower Mountains Family Support Service, Blaxland, NSW
- Key activity: A mentoring and training program to strengthen the capacity of children's service workers to respond to vulnerable children/families.
- Organisation: Autism Queensland Inc.
- Key activity: Multi-disciplinary early childhood education and family support program provided as an early intervention strategy for preschool children with autism spectrum disorders and their family.
- Organisation: Key Centre for Women's Health in Society, Melbourne School of Population Health, University of Melbourne
- Key activity: Early intervention with mothers and fathers soon after the birth of their first child to extend their knowledge and skills in managing infant needs and negotiating the new unpaid workload fairly, thereby alleviating potential mental health problems.
- Organisation: Playgroup Association of Queensland
- Key activity: A music therapy early intervention strategy for parents of young children.
- Organisation: Kingston Bayside Primary Care Partnership
- Key activity: A health promotion strategy for young parents and youth at risk of early pregnancy, utilising a peer-education model expanding the scope of existing school-based, sexual health programs.
Nutrition
- Organisation: The Smith Family & NSW Refugee Health Service
- Key activity: Addresses nutrition and food security issues among refugee children and their families who have settled recently in Fairfield NSW.
- Organisation: Communities@Work - ACT
- Key activity: Family mentoring program.
Peer-support, social supports, life skills etc (building resilience, social connectedness)
Parents
- Organisation: Upper Hume Community Health Service
- Key activity: Multi-sector, collaborative, early intervention strategy for young parents in rural communities.
- Organisation: St Joseph's Family Services, Port Macquarie (NSW)
- Key activity: A coordinated parent/carer support program to reduce isolation, strengthen and build parenting and relationship skills and support networks.
- Organisation: Frankston Community Health Service
- Key activity: The aim is to build a sense of community and to improve the physical and mental health of participants through promoting healthy eating, learning how to plan, cook and share nutritious low-cost meals and fostering social inclusion.
- Organisation: Melbourne Citymission
- Key activity: Young parent support and education.
- Organisation: Holroyd Parramatta Migrant Services, Toongabbie, NSW
- Key activity: Assisting parents and children from minority refugee and migrant backgrounds to access social, recreational, training, employment and community linkage activities.
- Organisation: Lower Mountains Family Support Service, Blaxland, NSW
- Key activity: A mentoring and training program to strengthen the capacity of children's service workers to respond to vulnerable children/families.
- Organisation: Uniting Care Wesley Adelaide (facilitating partner), Centacare (community partner)
- Key activity: Little Engines Early Childhood Education professionals act as co-workers and mentors for staff from community agencies to increase their capacity to offer free supported playgroups for disadvantaged children 0-5 years. The playgroup model includes a community development focus that offers families access to a wide range of services through co-worker/co-facilitator partnerships with local social workers, health professionals and other support workers providing extensive support to families.
- Organisation: Centacare Wilcannia–Forbes
- Key activity: Provision of access to quality financial counselling services free of charge to people in low income groups, experiencing financial crisis due to circumstances such as unemployment, sickness, credit over-commitment or family breakdown
- Organisation: Partnership between Hackham West Community Centre (HWCC), Noarlunga Downs P-7 School and Hackham South School CPC-7
- Key activity: School-based approach to building community capacity, resilience and self-reliance.
- Organisation: Northern Gold Coast Communities for Children Project, Oxenford Coomera Community Youth Centre (South-East Queensland)
- Key activity: Aims to ensure that all families in the Northern Gold Coast community have access to a range of responsive services, supports, education, skills training and relationships.
- Organisation: SDN Children's Services (formerly Sydney Day Nursery)
- Key activity: Parenting support for socio-economically marginalised and at risk families.
- Organisation: Centracare SA in partnership w Hackham West Community Centre, Christie Downs Community Centre, Morphett Vale Woodcroft Neighbourhood Centre
- Key activity: Support for existing playgroups.
- Organisation: Centacare Wilcannia Forbes, NSW
- Key activity: Supports young, teenage mothers to increase their skills and confidence in parenting, as well as to re-engage with education and community services relevant to their needs.
- Organisation: Communities@Work - ACT
- Key activity: Family mentoring program.
Young people
- Organisation: Family Life
- Key activity: As part of a holistic response to families experiencing stress and are at risk of family breakdown, the “Keith Street” Community House incorporates a range of programs for parent support, volunteering and social connections. A critical centrepiece is developing informal networks and community connections to facilitate sustainable change for families and improved outcomes for children.
- Organisation: Melbourne Citymission
- Key activity: Young parent support and education.
- Organisation: Stride Foundation, Coonamble (North-West NSW)
- Key activity: Teaching life skills to disengaged young males through sports-based mentoring.
- Organisation: Kingston Bayside Primary Care Partnership
- Key activity: A health promotion strategy for young parents and youth at risk of early pregnancy, utilising a peer-education model expanding the scope of existing school-based, sexual health programs.
- Organisation: Springvale Community Aid and Advice Bureau Inc (SCAAB), Melbourne (VIC)
- Key activity: Provides capacity building, resilience and self-reliance opportunities for disadvantaged members though community volunteering.
- Organisation: Youth Insearch Foundation (YIF)
- Key activity: Youth Insearch is a 3-stage early intervention program for young people at risk between the ages of 12-18 years. The practice focuses on leadership training and personal development for at-risk young people, primarily from rural and regional communities.
- Organisation: Youth Insearch Foundation (YIF)
- Key activity: Youth Insearch weekend camp and follow-up program is an early intervention program for young people at risk between the ages of 12-18 years. It is peer focused, utilising peers supporting peers to achieve results.
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