Today I announce details of a commitment of $365 million over the next four years to fund a number of programmes, principally, to support early intervention to help children and families where there is a strong likelihood that those children would not otherwise grow up in a stable and supportive environment.
A portion of the funding will also help projects which focus on family and community capacity-building. In addition, we will maintain and expand the highly successful in-home and other flexible child care options which have been a feature of the Government';s Stronger Families and Communities Strategy operating over the past four years.
A major element of the programmes to be funded will be the extensive involvement of well known welfare bodies who are best placed to know what assistance is needed and the best way to deliver it.
Those new programmes will build on the success of the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy which over the past four years has seen $226 million spent on a range of projects.
Our approach over the next four years will stress even more strongly the importance of early intervention. This approach is based on evidence that effective intervention in the early childhood years leads to better life chances of vulnerable children, including better education and employment outcomes.
The theme of early intervention is apparent in the four key funding initiatives that comprise the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy, from which all individual project funds will be allocated. The four initiatives are: Communities for Children, where $110 million will fund organisations in 35 localities to develop and implement a whole-of-community approach to early childhood and families; Early Childhood – Invest to Grow, where $70 million will support the development of proven early childhood programmes as well as funding practical support for parents and professionals; Local Answers, which will provide $60 million to smaller community-based projects that focus on family and community capacity building; and Choice and Flexibility in Child Care, which will provide $125 million for innovative child care solutions, such as continuation of the in-home care programme and incentives to establish child care provision in areas of high need, for example, in rural and urban fringe areas.
I am also announcing the first seven community organisations to receive funding under the Communities for Children initiative. The successful organisations include Mission Australia, whose innovative community and employment programmes help needy individuals, families and communities to get back on track and lead fulfilling lives. Mission Australia will be given around $3 million from this initiative to expand on services it has been providing since 1970 in Sydney';s South Western suburbs, including the Miller pre-school and the Liverpool Family Day Care Service.
The expansion will be modelled on Mission Australia';s successful Pathways to Prevention programme already operating in Inala, Queensland. This programme targets disadvantaged communities and provides services such as playgroups for children of non-English speaking backgrounds, parenting classes and adult literacy classes, in collaboration with other non-government and community organisations in the area.
Mission Australia has targetted the South Western Sydney suburbs of Miller, Green Valley, Cartwright and Sadlier because they comprise a disadvantaged community with attendant socioeconomic problems. Through this programme, Mission Australia will aim to provide the best possible start in life for some 2,000 needy children under the age of five.
In addition, I am announcing: six projects to receive funding under the Early Childhood – Invest to Grow initiative; fourteen projects under the Local Answers initiative; and ten new in-home care services, offering over 200 new places, under the Choice and Flexibility in Child Care initiative.
We will continue to work in partnership with community organisations, business, early childhood and community experts and other levels of government in implementing the Strategy.
More information on the Strategy can be found on the website at www.facs.gov.au/sfcs.