Tweddle Child and Family Health Service will deliver more parenting supports for new parents and their young children giving them the best possible start to life, with the establishment of an Early Parenting Centre in Wyndham.
New Early Parenting Centres will be built in Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong, Frankston, Casey, Wyndham and Whittlesea, costing the Victorian Government $123 million. Two existing centres in Footscray and Noble Park will be upgraded to meet increasing demand.
The centres will provide a critical role in ensuring parents are getting the advice and care they need, including support with sleep and settling, feeding, extra care for babies with additional needs and enhancing the parent-child relationship.
With one in two parents seeking seeking assistance from early parenting centre’s reporting problems with their child’s sleep, the services will play a big role in not only educating parents, but also in beating postnatal depression, isolation and stress for parents, which can result from failure to manage sleep and settling issues that can also impact a child’s behavioural, mental and physical development.
The centres will provide day-stays and longer residential stay programs to improve the health, wellbeing and developmental outcomes for children aged up to four years old. Each new centre will include 10 residential units and four day stay units – helping more than 5,000 extra families a year.
Construction of the centres will be completed in two phases, with centres in the first phase being delivered by 2022, and those in the second phase by 2024. Community Advisory Groups are being established to help inform planning for each new centre.
