Together in the South

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (15:29): Today, I rise to speak about an excellent initiative that I have had the privilege of being involved in since its inception, an initiative that is now strongly underway in and around my electorate: Together in the South. Together in the South is a community-led initiative that brings together community members, community organisations, philanthropy, business, schools, council and government agencies to support vulnerable children who are zero to eight years old living in our southern community.

It is relentlessly focused on aligning every effort to ensure that every child is safe, healthy, active, ready to learn and engaging positively. This collective effort is assessed by agreed, shared measurement processes that track our progress towards our shared results. Operating across nine suburbs within the City of Onkaparinga, it has been aligning effort to support children for around three years. The group is currently rolling out a significant campaign, systematically getting more zero to four year olds into playgroups by making sure that information about available playgroups is everywhere and by supporting community members to connect other community members to playgroups and support them to attend.

Playgroups are a great way for young children to try new activities, make friends and develop a sense of community. They are also a great way for parents to connect with others and get the support and advice they may need to feel confident and positive about their parenting journey. This push to increase attendance rates at children's playgroups in our southern community by Together in the South is a great idea, and it will provide practical outcomes for parents and young children living in the south.

Playgroups play such an invaluable role for parents and their children's development. New parents receive particular benefit from being engaged with playgroups, as they offer them support and advice at what can be a challenging time in their lives. As part of the campaign, Together in the South has collated the details of the local playgroups into an easy-to-access booklet and is reaching out to parents of young children through multiple community networks and through social media.

The impetus for this project came via data commissioned by Playgroup SA that shows that more can be done to ensure that young children and parents get involved in playgroups. By encouraging more social and educational opportunities for young children, particularly those who are less engaged with community activity, we ensure that they have the tools they need to hit the ground running at kindergarten and primary school. Jess, a young mother of two from Christie Downs, recently shared her experience of playgroups. She said:

I came to a playgroup through my community support worker. I didn't know about playgroups before then.

I was trying to finish Year 12 and I had a young baby. As soon as I started taking my baby daughter to playgroup I saw how good it was for my baby and me.

You can have a conversation…your child is stimulated and learning.

They see so many new things…they learn so much and it takes a huge stress off parents who can get together in a neutral space.

Together in the South is built using the collective impact model and is part of Together SA's network of community-led, collective impact initiatives now happening across our state. Together in the South is also an Opportunity Child site. Opportunity Child provides backbone support and coordination to 10 similar initiatives across our country, using collective impact to dramatically improve the lives of the 65,000 Australian children who start school each year with big challenges in learning and in life.

Collective impact is a framework for achieving large-scale social change and for solving complex social issues. It is a structured approach that brings community members and organisations together to innovate and to focus on a common objective, with the aim of achieving lasting results. Together in the South are using this model to achieve long-lasting results for children in our southern community. Together, over the past few years, we have identified the 2,000 most vulnerable zero to eight year olds, and it is them and their families that we seek to engage, support and empower through this work.

It is initiatives like the playgroup program that encouraged the former government to support Together SA and its community partners. Together SA receive funding and in-kind support from an array of community and philanthropic organisations, but they need ongoing government support so they can continue to provide community initiatives like the playgroup program. I implore this state government to continue to support Together SA so they can get on with what they do best: bringing local community members together to develop and grow long-term practical solutions to complex social issues.