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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-11-10 Daily Xml
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CHILDREN'S CENTRES

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (14:44): My question is to the Minister for Early Childhood Development. How are the state government's children's centres helping to assist families with young children in the western suburbs?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Minister for Education, Minister for Early Childhood Development) (14:44): I thank the honourable member for her question. I was very pleased to join her at the Cowandilla children's centre for a celebration to open the school at Cowandilla Primary School together—

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for MacKillop, you are on your second warning.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —with the federal member for Hindmarsh, Mr Steve Georganas, who was in fact educated at the Cowandilla Primary School, as was the member for Enfield, I understand, so it is a fine institution, producing two leading Labor figures. Members would be well aware of our children's centres initiative, and it has been a great success. We have children's centres operating right across South Australia now, in places like Woodcroft, Elizabeth Grove and Kaurna Plains, and they provide hundreds of preschool and childcare places to South Australian children.

Of course, they do much more. They bring together the aspects of care, preschool, parenting, health and disability services. In the case of the Cowandilla centre, it is a wonderful site that also has dental services, and the nurse home visiting program operates from the health centre there. So it is a wonderful collaboration and you get more than the sum of the parts. You get this collaboration across the professions that allows us to really add value to those professionals in their work

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: To give you an idea of how responsive this service is, we heard a wonderful story today, a wonderful anecdote from the principal, Julie Hayes, who told us that she was wandering around the school grounds and she saw a distressed Filipino woman who had come in there with her small four-year-old child. She had recently got a job herself, working in a nearby dry cleaner's. She had had difficulty arranging child care and that had fallen through. She had to take the child to work and the employer told her that she could not do that and that she would lose her job if she could not find child care urgently. So she was in desperate straits. She came into the school grounds, and the child was enrolled that day and is now very happily integrated into that childcare centre. We saw her singing a beautiful song to us, as we were greeted in the opening ceremony.

It is a wonderful example of how responsive these community childcare centres are. What they do is connect with the broader community. It is wonderful to see the number of parents who are engaged in this childcare centre. Each of the children's centres takes their own character from their own communities, in this case, a very multicultural community, with 35 nationalities represented in this school and children's centre.

What we see also is a strong Aboriginal presence. They run a Nunga Mi:Minar program, which is a group specifically for Aboriginal families, as well as a range of playgroups on a monthly basis for dads. So there is a very strong fathers' group at this children's centre. It is really a wonderful example of the policy of early childhood development in practice, that is, the integration of all the services and support that make a difference in those crucial first five years of a child's life.

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