I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Easter and a safe and enjoyable long weekend. Double Demerits will be in place from March 29 until April 2, and with 88 people unfortunately having already lost their lives this year on NSW roads I urge everyone to please think twice before breaking the road rules this long weekend.
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Access to education
Minister for Early Education and Aboriginal Affairs Sarah Mitchell and I announced in Dubbo last week that Aboriginal children across NSW will benefit from a new program targeting the quality enhancement of Aboriginal early childhood services.
The NSW Government’s Quality Support program was developed following close consultation with the sector and aims to identify and address challenges faced by Aboriginal services across the state.
Minister Mitchell expressed that this program is delivering what the sector expects and children and families deserve.
The Quality Support program is yet another way the NSW Government is ensuring all families, regardless of their background, have access to top quality early childhood education services for their children.
This is also a fantastic opportunity for Aboriginal services to come together and discuss how Aboriginal culture has been embedded to everyday practice at their service. It is absolutely vital for Aboriginal children across the state to have a strong sense of culture and heritage and this program will support that.
Aboriginal services with exemplary ratings and compliance history will be delivering sessions to showcase how Aboriginal culture has successfully been integrated to pedagogy at their services. These sessions will then be translated into a series of guides for services to keep and refer to.
The NSW Department of Education will also work directly alongside identified Aboriginal services to ensure they are meeting quality standards. Support will include visits, training, online follow-up, telephone support and additional resources to boost quality. Sessions will be held in Wellington as well as Sydney, Newcastle, Mogo, Lismore, Walgett, Griffith and Kempsey.
Community partnerships
I also have the privilege last week to present some more Community Building Partnership funding to local community groups to help improve local facilities at Dubbo’s South Dubbo Oval and the Dubbo Model Railway Club.
South Dubbo Oval was presented with $15,440 for two new grandstands to be built for the viewing of junior, women’s and men’s sport with room to expand for more seating.
Whilst the Dubbo Model Railway Club accepted $10,517 which will be used to replace their kitchen including, sink, storage cupboards and benchtops. As well as replacing the floor coverings, sewer line and existing stormwater line to an external pit.
Congratulations to these two deserving groups that are putting this funding to good use. The applications for the 2018 round of the Community Building Partnership fund will be opening in May.
Immunisation rates
I praised parents across the Dubbo electorate for having their children immunised as Western NSW again achieved the highest immunisation coverage in Australia.
The Western NSW region had helped boost the statewide rates in NSW, which has PHNs with the highest immunisation coverage in Australia for all children – Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal – at one and five years of age and almost 200 postcode areas with coverage above 95 per cent at five years of age.
The NSW Government has committed $22.75 million in 2017-18 for immunisation programs, including $1.75 million for an immunisation campaign which will kick off in April and $3.5 million for free flu shots for children aged from six months to five years old.
Until next week, Troy
