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About us – Salisbury Communities for Children
The rationale behind Communities for children has been developed by the research and consultation undertaken for the development of the Australian Governments National Agenda for Early Childhood.
The agenda recognizes that effective early childhood intervention is not only about supporting young children, but also supporting their parents, neighborhoods and the wider community.
Under Communities for Children, Non-Government organizations (NGO’s) are engaged as “Facilitating Partners” in up to 45 communities or sites, around Australia to develop and implement a strategic and sustainable community approach to early childhood development in consultation with local stakeholders. Each site has developed various kinds of partnerships with a large number of local service providers.
Funding for each site ranges from $1 million to $4 million. Sites have been selected on the basis of a range of information including proportion of children in the community, number of families receiving Family Tax Benefits, consultations with State and Territory Governments and indicators of disadvantage such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Our site includes the suburbs of Ingle Farm, Pooraka, Para Hills, Para Hills West, Salisbury East, Para Vista and Brahma Lodge.
The Communities for Children approach is a recognition that locally based NGO’s in consultation with the local community, have the necessary skills, experience and governance structures to be best placed to understand local issues for families with young children, know the environment and the existing strengths of the community that can be built on, and have the capacity and networks to facilitate local partnerships.
Facilitating partners are required to establish Communities for Children Committee with broad representation from stakeholders in the community, facilitate the development of a four year Community Strategic Plan and annual Service Delivery Plans with the Committee, and manage the overall funding allocation for the site, including disbursement of most of this funding to other local services to deliver the activities identified in the Community Strategic Plan and Service Delivery Plans.
Facilitating Partners and Communities for Children sites are listed on the FaHCSIA website www.fahcsia.gov.au.
TopThe SC4C FamilyZone Project
´It takes a village to raise a child´ at a time when villages have almost become an obsolete social grouping of the past in most westernized countries. Communities need to offer opportunities and family friendly places where family relationships can be nurtured and developed. The FamilyZone Ingle Farm Hub with its outreach centres and activities, supports this by providing resources for parents in a warm friendly environment that welcomes parents and children. The FamilyZone concept is developing and evolving in response to parents and children´s identified needs. This concept has some parallels with and draws on the kind of models being developed by the Sure Start Children´s Centres in the UK and the Toronto First Duty initiatives in Canada. A team has been developed to engage community involvement and coordinate, broker & link community services for families with children 0-12 years in 5 northern Adelaide suburbs. Volunteers assist in the day-to-day running of FamilyZone centres and associated outreach activities.
The FamilyZone Hub is a child and family centre that brings together a range of supports for families designed to facilitate the development of healthy attachment in the early years and create an environment which enhances the development of children 0-12years in the physical, emotional, social, cognitive & spiritual domains. These include supported playgroups, parent groups, early learning activities, home visiting, creche activities, CALD support groups, postnatal support groups, young parent education & support, community events and community engagement initiatives that raise awareness of early childhood issues.
FamilyZone co-locates NGO´and government services at a hub at Ingle Farm Primary School in the north of Adelaide. It also services a number of satellite outreach centres and activities in surrounding suburbs. The hub has been developed in response to initial interviews with some 125 parents in the site, a consultation with existing service providers, the implementation of the Australian Early Development Index and ongoing consultation with local families and service providers. The Salvation Army Ingle Farm is the Facilitating Partner working alongside Lutheran Community Care, Centacare, the City of Salisbury, Child & Family Health Services and the Department of Education and Children´s Services. Lutheran Community Care has been subcontracted to oversee the co-ordination and management of the Hub.
A multi-agency, multi and trans-disciplinary team has been developed to facilitate holistic integrated, seamless services for families with children 0-12 years at the hub. The hub links with a system of community outreach initiatives.
Other agencies involved in service provision on site include Lutheran Refugee and Mobile Creche Services, TAFESA, Family Day Care, Modbury Hospital, Lyell McEwin Hospital, North East Division of General Practice, Parenting Network, Salisbury Primary Health Care services and Housing SA.
The FamilyZone Para Hills parent centre satellite is being developed by local parents and school leadership in a renovated former canteen at Para Hills Junior Primary. It is the kind of low cost development that can become a starting point for what may develop into a larger hub over time.
The Salvation Army Ingle Farm is also facilitating a concept built around a 'continuous' playgroup in a large indoor area that operates for three days per week and links with options such as music and reading groups. This family friendly initiative regularly engages with some 275 adults and 400 children and is designed to promote healthy early childhood development and provide information and support to parents.
These developments are auspiced by a stakeholder representative Communities for Children Committee. The initiative has also developed a number of innovative team-based governance structures and worked through many of the issues involved in the development of a multi-agency, multi and trans-disciplinary staff team .
In 2009 the FamilyZone Ingle Farm recorded 5,768 visits from families. A Promising Practice Profile has been developed as part of the Communities for Children National Evaluation and can be downloaded from the Communities and Families Clearinghouse Australia website.
