Early-years project gains momentum
Aprominent Victorian child expert is confident a collective effort to improve early-childhood development programs and circumstances across the region is on the right track.
Pediatrician Professor Frank Oberklaid said on a visit to Horsham that he had been impressed by Wimmera Southern Mallee Regional Partnership’s approach to finding the best ways to develop childhood services.
Professor Oberklaid, Centre for Community Childhood director at the Royal Children’s Hospital, joined project officer Rachel Robinson at Grains Innovation Park last week to discuss issues with various sector representatives.
In visiting Horsham as part of a regional early-years project, Prof Oberklaid explained a need for a flexible approach and an ‘open door’ system that could meet the many different needs of communities, families and individuals.
“The work the community is doing here is fantastic. I’ve met with various regional players and I’ve been very impressed. They are all over it and they want us to help them work through this,” he said.
“The future is about working in partnership and, critically, about co-designing, and I think Wimmera people are well on the way to doing that really well.
“Systems work when communities co-design and co-own the whole process. We have to move away from ‘diagnose and treat’ to ‘listen and respond’.”
The partnership launched the project with an aim to streamline and co-ordinate services supporting young children and families in the region after identifying the issue at a 2016 community assembly in Horsham.
The State Government announced support for the project last year.
Important
Prof Oberklaid congratulated the Wimmera-southern Mallee community for identifying childhood development in the region as a priority.
“The early years of a child’s life are critical and impact on a whole range of outcomes right through life,” he said.
“We’ve learned in the past decade or so that the developing brain is exquisitely sensitive to the environment.
“Young children as they grow up need good nutrition, protection from injury, and immunisation to protect them from infection. But they also really need a consistent stimulating and responsive environment and parents who provide learning opportunities.
“If that doesn’t happen there are lifelong consequences. Children who grow up in disadvantaged, stressful families and stressed communities are at risk of problems not just in childhood but also adulthood.
“Literature is now suggesting things such as crime participation, poor school achievement or literacy, welfare dependency, mental-health problems, heart disease and so on all have their origins in pathways that begin in those early years.
“It costs about $300,000 a year to keep one young person in social justice. Even if you don’t care about kids it makes sense to invest, $5000, $10,000, $20,000, $50,000 early on to stop these problems from occurring. So it is really a prevention agenda.”
Prof Oberklaid said a community co-design system was already underway, with Ms Robinson having met with 240 people from a broad cross-section of communities in the past two months
“What the Wimmera is doing here is really cutting-edge stuff. Nobody is doing it better,” he said.