BUSHkids Annual Report 2019-20

ANNUAL REPORT 2019–2020

School readiness is a key role for the CPSS team as the regions in which we work have, according to the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) data, a higher percentage of children presenting with developmental delays. BUSHkids more widely provides a number of evidence-based, evidence- informed programs to families, schools and into childcare centres to support child development. These include:  PALS (Playing and Learning Social Skills)  Fun Friends – resilience and the treatment of anxiety and depression  Read and Grow – development of emergent literacy skills  The Alert Program ® – to help young children with regulating emotions  Fingergym™ – fine motor skills development. BUSHkids, with funding from DSS, created and developed the innovative A Steady Start to School program. This brought together evidence-based information to guide and direct clinicians to assist parents with their child’s transition to schooling. We also designed a training program for staff and many now deliver the program each year to parents of three- and four-year-olds ready to start school and kindy next year. Playgroups have played a significant role in CPSS service provision, and BUSHkids has established and maintains playgroups in nine locations: Agnes Water (Nature Play), Blackbutt, Durong, Kingaroy, Miriam Vale, Proston, Rosedale, Stanthorpe and Wallangarra. As well as in the Agnes Water community we support four other playgroups, at Bororen, Captain Creek, Steiner and Wartburg. After completing training, the teams have also established Parent-Child Mother Goose ® playgroups which bring together singing and story time. These are currently provided in our three core CPSS service areas: Agnes Water, Kingaroy and Stanthorpe.

Playgroups promote parent support and connection as well as providing much-needed early years learning opportunities for children in rural and remote locations. Play-based activities support children’s development. Play has been a significant focus in the DSS-funded regions, and a great partnership has developed between BUSHkids and Nature Play QLD to conduct ‘BUSHkindy’ workshops, Nature Play days and workshops, Loose Parts Play and primary educators’ sessions. A clear goal in the team is to promote play with loose objects and nature as it is free and does not require expensive resources. This helps level the playing field for children in play. A particularly innovative project arose from much experience holding big playgroups in parks and community events with simple play activities. Parents often made remarks like ‘wow, that is a good idea, how do I do that?’ Our team’s desire to not have to hand- write another playdough recipe (!) led to a collection of 40 BUSHkids Playtime cards being created (see last year’s BUSHkids Annual Report, pp 36-37). These cards are now used in individual interventions, in playgroups and at community engagement events for early years workers. Feedback about the cards from both professionals and families has been very positive. The deep community connections formed by our CPSS teams have been tested by a number of disasters during the last five years, with widespread flooding at the start of our DSS-funded services followed by drought across all three regions, major fires in two, and then the arrival of COVID-19 in 2020.

In times of upheaval, where lives are relocated to crisis centres, we have partnered to support our communities with resources and setting up play areas for children. One key partnership has been with the Queensland Centre for Perinatal and Infant Mental Health and BUSHkids obtaining the wonderful Birdie books that have supported our families in talking with their children, during and after times of crisis. Empowerment of parents is a key CPSS goal. Like the whole of BUSHkids, the CPSS team pulled together during COVID-19 restrictions, transferring all of our programs and services to the virtual world. We worked in creative and innovative ways to ensure community connectedness for our children and families, our key focus to make sure people did not feel alone. Our Early Intervention Facilitators also created an amazing collection of home packs for the children of each region and made contactless delivery to mailboxes – more about the great success of these heartwarming efforts on the following pages. The pandemic’s effects have certain- ly strengthened our efforts and we can now utilise the strengths of team members across the regions – as well as across BUSHkids – no longer restricted by hundreds of kilometres’ separation but united by ZOOM. Our service framework is based on child-focused family-centred practice remembering the important ‘three Es’ of engagement, education and empowerment . In our work we have role-modelled and demonstrated (‘I do’) , we have worked with families to help them gain skills (‘we do’) and we have empowered parents to meet their goals for their children and their families (‘you do’) . As a team we always remember it is a privilege to be invited into the lives of families and children and we respect the strengths, values and beliefs they hold. Holistic family-centred practice meets each family’s individual goals.

TOPIC SECTION 21 CPSS HE FIRST FIVE YEARS