A Strategic Assessment of the Children's Services Industry

STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT OF THE CHILDREN’S SERVICES INDUSTRYVICTORIAVictoria’s Plan to Improve Outcomes in Early Childhood and the Victorian Government’sBlueprint for Education and Early Childhood Development recognise the importance ofquality early childhood education and care services.Children’s Centres are central to this strategy to improve quality. Since 1999, the VictorianGovernment has committed to build 95 Children’s Centres, of which 66 have already beenallocated funds. Children’s Centres comprise an integrated service model, providing maternaland child health services, long day care, kindergarten, early intervention services and familyservices in one location. Children’s Centres offer accessible, affordable, high quality earlychildhood education and care programmes, offering the benefits of stability and conveniencefor families. The integrated model facilitates the relationship with family services and childprotection services to enable earlier intervention and a more coordinated, systemic response tovulnerable children and families.Children’s Centres are designed to offer co-located and integrated services that extend beyondearly childhood education and care and may include a range of other community services suchas health, recreation, youth, adult learning, library and pre-employment services.Case Study: Poet’s GroveThe Poet’s Grove Family and Children’s Centre is a multi-purpose venue, co-located with theElwood Primary School. It is home to a 60 place long day care centre, 30 place sessionalkindergarten, the maternal and child health service, as well as a multi-purpose room andspecialist consulting rooms for services such as speech therapy.Poet’s Grove Family and Children’s Centre was achieved through extensive cooperation andcollaboration between the City of Port Phillip, the local community and the StateGovernment.A land swap with the Department of Education ensured that the centre was built in aconvenient location in the school grounds. The City of Port Phillip provided $2.2m infunding and the state government contributed $0.5m.Being co-located with the Elwood Primary School, means there is a ‘one stop shop’ forservices for families and their children from birth to the end of primary school as well ascontinuity of care. Elwood Secondary College is also located next to the primary school. Inaddition, the location of services under one roof provides professional developmentopportunities for all staff.67