ECEC in Focus: Kids on Gallaghers Child Care Centre

Kids on Gallaghers Child Care Centre has been recognised by the Victorian Government’s Achievement Program for its whole-service approach to health and wellbeing. Since joining the Achievement Program in 2023, the centre has completed all health areas of the free initiative.

The centre felt confident using the Achievement Program’s evidence-based framework as it highlighted their strong foundation of health and wellbeing and is aligned to the Australian Children’s Education & Care Quality Authority’s National Quality Standard.  

Centre Director Stella Orlando said Kids on Gallaghers joined the Achievement Program to apply a whole-service approach to improve health and wellbeing outcomes across all their programs. They also wanted to connect and build on the health and wellbeing initiatives at the centre, including those around sustainability and cultural diversity.  

“We do a lot of activities around sustainability, healthy eating and inclusion. We wanted a way to bring all these activities together. The framework helped us find interconnectivity between these different areas and approach them from a whole-of-setting lens,” Mrs Orlando said. 

The centre expanded use of their kitchen garden to benefit the community. Families were encouraged to grow food in their veggie patch and take home excess produce, making healthy eating more accessible at home.  

Thanks to the kitchen garden initiative, the community at Kids on Gallaghers now regularly exchange multicultural meal ideas with each other.  

Mrs Orlando said the Achievement Program also supported the service to improve the physical activity and movement initiative at the centre. 

“Using the framework, we realised we could do more to support physical activity and movement. In addition to incorporating movement into our daily activities, our centre now offers multiple movement programs to give the children and staff more opportunities to be active,” Mrs Orlando said.

Kids on Galllaghers Child Care Centre is supported by Link Health and Community Health Promotion Officer, Irene Dunne Pfeiffer. Ms Dunne Pfeiffer said the centre has done amazing things, like involving families in their kitchen garden activities to extend the benefits of the vibrant garden to the community along with policy alignment. 

Kids on Gallaghers saw their health and wellbeing progress meet both the National Quality Standards and the Achievement Program framework. They then used the Achievement Program framework to identify areas for improvement, confidently knowing changes would be aligned to the National Quality Standards.

The Achievement Program’s Head of Healthy Places, Dimity Gannon congratulated Kids on Gallaghers on its success in the whole-service approach and the team’s progress in extending health and wellbeing benefits to the community. 

Kids on Gallaghers is an example of how a whole-service approach to health and wellbeing can create meaningful change across the broader community. Their use of the framework to strengthen existing initiatives and engage families is what the Achievement Program is about.

The Achievement Program is available for free to help early childhood services and schools create a healthier environment. 

To learn more about Kids on Gallaghers Childcare Centre and the Achievement Program  or call 1300 721 682.