Providing Free Support to Disadvantaged Families in the Bush
As BUSHkids CEO I am pleased to report that we are now providing a wider variety of free services to rural, remote and regional Queenslanders than ever before.
While we continue to specialise in providing free preventative and early intervention allied healthcare, our regional service centres are increasingly adopting a holistic—whole—approach to supporting children. This includes supporting the child’s family and the community they live in, complementing individual therapy with a range of developmental and educational programs that promote overall family wellbeing, including positive parenting, school readiness, literacy and language development programs.
Our lead social worker recently told me about one of her clients, Marie[1].
“Marie is a single mum who works hard to support her six children aged from 16 months to 10 years-of-age. Unfortunately, Marie was struggling to cope and couldn’t devote much time to supporting the younger children’s development. Worryingly the family had become disconnected from the community around them and the younger children were not involved in any early learning activities. At BUSHkids we are strong advocates of early learning and are very aware of its importance to a child’s future educational outcomes; as young children play, socialise, create, and discover together, they gain invaluable skills that prepare them for success when they enter school.”
Through our Early Intervention Facilitators (EIFs) BUSHkids provides information, support and education to families of young children like Marie’s. To help Marie, our EIF ran a home based Read and Grow program to develop the younger children’s early literacy and language skills. This was combined with a Fingergym™ course which is a fun way to provide younger children with the essential fine motor skills—such as how to hold a pencil correctly or cut with scissors—they need when they enter school. Our EIF also helped Marie gain birth certificates for the children, this has enabled her four-year-old daughter to start a kindergarten program and we’ve been helping her manage routines to better cope with the stresses of her very demanding household.
Our support has made a massive difference to Marie and her family, and her children now have the same opportunity to do as well as other kids at school. You can help BUSHkids continue to provide support to disadvantaged families like Marie’s. Any gift of $2 or more which you are able to give is tax deductable and will help us provide free support for rural and remote families. You can donate by cheque, credit card or bank transfer and to make donating easier, you can now give online through our website. Just go to bushkids.org.au and click on the ‘Donate Now’ button.
[1] Name changed to protect the client’s identity.
We truly appreciate your support and sincerely thank you for your time and consideration.
Chief Executive Officer
