The Go Goldfields Children and Families Partnership provide guidance to the Early Years’ Service Sector and community to deliver innovative local solutions. Our initiatives focus on the importance of positive family relationships and community connectivity. Our strategies ensure that all children are provided with the resources and support they require for them to reach their full potential for a positive future. Together, we collaborate to achieve our aspiration of;
‘All children in our community are confident, creative, safe and healthy.’
Explore the linked activities initiated to achieve these priorities on our local impact initiatives page.
IMPACT AREA OVERVIEW
The Children and Families Partnership provide support to the Early Years’ Service Sector and community to deliver innovative local solutions to ensure all children are provided with the resources and support they require for them to reach their full potential for a positive future.
The partnership provides both an early intervention and prevention lens across all strategies and activities for children from birth to 12 years of age. Our key messaging focuses on the importance of positive family relationships and community connectivity support the Partnerships aspiration of ‘Children in the Central Goldfields shire are confident, creative, safe and healthy’.
OUR COMMUNITY-DRIVEN ASPIRATIONS
- ‘Children and families actively engage and participate in Maternal Child Health, playgroup, kindergarten and school’;
- ‘All children experience a positive, supportive family environment’, and
- ‘All children engage and participate in community activities’.
OUR PRIORITIES
- Improved service continuity and collaboration;
- Improved access, information and awareness of the service system;
- All children experience a positive and supportive family environment; and
- All children engage and participate in community activities.
You can refer to this impact area’s VISION IN ACTION chart above to see how our aspirations inform our 12 month priorities. These priorities are assigned short and medium objectives by our various working groups. The working groups then set linked activities to achieve these objectives. All of this moves us closer to attaining the original community-driven aspirations that dive our work. None of this is possible without the voices of our community and the collective efforts of our collaborative partners.
OUR PARTNERSHIPS
The merger at the commencement of 2018 between Best Start and Go Goldfields Children and Families, now known as the Central Goldfields Children and Families Partnership has strengthened the collective approach with strong commitments from both Maryborough District Health Service and Central Goldfields Shire. The Partnership comprises representatives from Department Education and Training, Maryborough District Health Service, Maryborough Education Centre, St. Augustine’s Primary School, Central Victorian Primary Care Partnership, Anglicare Victoria Family Services, Child Aware Local Initiative Community Members, Central Goldfields Principals Network, YMCA Kindergarten Cluster, Paisley Park Early Years Centre and Central Goldfields Shire’s Early Years Services.
Our Children and Families Partnership meet monthly ensuring all members keep informed of the work, are engaged in shaping the strategies using evidence-based practice and identify opportunities for alignment of work across organisations. Key players in communicating the work back to community groups are the
The Early Years Forum, held quarterly, attended by Early Years stakeholders provides a vital platform for sharing information, knowledge and two-way communication, creating a continuous learning and adaption environment.
OUR MEASURES
Go Goldfields strives to underpin our work with evaluation and strategic learning. We continue to collect data that directly informs our work, to track shifts and to better understand the outcomes of our impact work. This data also assists us to refine our objectives and linked activities. We are privileged to have a strong relationship with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI).The belief that “Every child can grow to reach their full potential” is at the heart of everything that the MCRI does, this is just one of the many synergies that bond us with the work being done across our four impact areas. The researchers at MCRI provide evidence that keeps our work authentic and relevant, advice and invaluable conversations with our working and reference groups and networks.
RESOURCES
Build Your Village Here – This website was put together by a group of local parents. It was a Child Aware Local Initiative led nationally by the Australian Centre for Child Protection and Families Australia. Financial support for this project was provided by Families Australia. The project was facilitated by Go Goldfields.
