Appears A The Early Childhood Parenting Centre located at Chisholm St/Sherrard St (Ballarat) is a simulated home environment catering specifically for parents with infants and pre-school aged children. CAFS understands and supports current research which shows the first five years of a child’s life are critical to early brain development.

Programs and services provided at ECPC include:

Day Stay 

Day Stay is a one day supportive, practical service for families who are experiencing difficulties with early parenting, e.g. settling or feeding. It is available to any parent in the community. 

Enquiries through Chisholm St on  5327 1100/5331 7556. 

Parenting Assessment and Skills Development Service (PASDS)

A service provided to parents of infants at high risk to enable comprehensive assessment of parenting skills and individualised skill development plans. Referrals mostly come through Child Protection Services.

This service is provided as a five-day residential stay or weekly home visits for up to 20 weeks.

Parenting Group

A parenting Group runs once a week for isolated women and their children to provide education and support for the parents and a social and learning environment for the children.

Family Support

In-home Family Support is provided for parents with young children.

Mentoring for Families

This program aims to support families with young children by matching them with a trained mentor, to be a trusted friend who can offer guidance, realistic advice and practical support as needed.

The volunteer mentors have enjoyed their own parenting experience. They have undertaken an eight week training program, focusing on parenting skills, developmental milestones of young children, home safety, effective communication and conflict resolution skills and the identification of community and recreation resources that would be beneficial for the family to use.

Access to Early Learning

This is a new project, building on the Early Start Kindergarten initiative which provides 3 year-old children known to the Child Protection; Child First or receiving an Enhanced M & C H Service; free access to kindergarten for up to 10.75 hours a week. A facilitator/family support worker is based at the Early Childhood Parenting Centre to assist families and kindergarten providers to overcome barriers to kinder participation for vulnerable children.

Growing Together

An intensive home-based intervention program offering parenting support and early childhood education to parents with an intellectual disability or learning difficulty.

Transition Project

Assists vulnerable families to help their children make a successful transition into primary school.

Early Home Learning Study

In collaboration with the Parenting Centre this study is measuring improvements in early learning and development foundations for children 6 – 12 months.  Up to 6 play groups run concurrently across 3 different domains and intensities.

Early Childhood Development Project

This project was established to strengthen collaboration and linkages between universal services and the family support and child protection systems to provide vulnerable children with improved opportunities in accessing and engaging with universal services.  The senior co-ordinator is based at the Early Childhood Parenting Centre.

Eureka Learning Hub

CAFS hosts the Eureka Learning Hub, part of the national Healthy Start Program - a strategy to support parents with learning difficulties and promote a healthy start to life for their young children.
The Eureka Learning Hub brings together agencies and individuals. It has been able to collate information about local services and resources available to parents with learning difficulties. The Hub has already identified gaps in service provision in the Ballarat area and is working to build upon and enhance the capacity of services to work with parents with learning difficulties.
The convener reports back relevant information from the Healthy Start program.

Eureka Learning Hub is convened by Pennie Mathieson, contact: � or call 5331 7556.