EPC Funding Announcement

New Early Parenting Centre at First Peoples’ Health and Wellbeing’s new Frankston Clinic

FPHW is excited to share that a new Early Parenting Centre (EPC) is on the way for Frankston. The Victorian Premier has announced today that if re-elected, Labor will fund FPHW to set up Victoria’s first Aboriginal-led EPC in our new Frankston Clinic.

This will mean we can give our community in the Bayside Peninsula region the services and support they need to be safe and strong – as babies, children and families.

Our staff at the new Centre will deliver an Aboriginal-led model of care to:

• Support new parents to learn all the skills they need to be confident and capable parents

• Help keep relationships between parents, families and their babies and children strong

• Help families connect with their community for support.

The funding comes following a report by Monash University’s Health and Social Care Unit that shows the need for Aboriginal-led early years support for community in the Bayside Peninsula region. The University found a clear and current gap in the provision of Aboriginal-led early years services for families in the Bayside Peninsula Region – a region where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations are projected to grow by 51% by 2028.

As the only ACCHO in the region, FPHW welcomes the assistance of the Labor Government to help us meet the needs of our growing community – especially in the critical early years of new parents’, babies’ and children’s lives.

We know many of our young families rarely use mainstream providers unless they are court ordered or have child protection services’ involvement. Contact with a mainstream EPC can be seen as ‘surveillance’ not ‘support’. The opportunity to set up an Aboriginal-led EPC at our new Frankston Clinic is a tangible step towards self-determination and delivering real outcomes for community.

We look forward to working with community and local services to develop the service-model and consider how we best meet the needs of parents and families.

For more information about the Labor Government commitments for new parents please see the Premier’s press release:

https://www.danandrews.com.au/news/more-support-for-mums-dads-and-babies

For media enquires:

Karinda Taylor

Chief Executive Officer

karinda.taylor@fphw.org.au

0477 622 210