BUSHkids Annual Report 2015-16

CEO

Gambling Community Benefit Fund BUSHkids was successful in gaining GCBF funding for the development and implementation of school readiness programs and community training initiatives in Bundaberg, Emerald, Inglewood and Mount Isa. Tertiary sector BUSHkids continues to work with universities across Queensland – most notably with the University of Queensland through the telehealth project. Speech Pathology students fromThe University of Queensland also contributed significant voluntary time to develop resource packs to support the implementation of Read and Grow. Meetings have been held with Central Queensland University’s Schools of Occupational Therapy and Speech and Language Pathology to explore options for collaboration between the two organisations, in particular around student placements and staff recruitment. BUSHkids is piloting the Parents Play program in conjunction with researchers at Deakin University. Partnerships and collaborations Clinical Read and Grow Read and Grow is an emergent literacy program which has been successfully introduced at BUSHkids during the 2015-16 year. Our clinical leadership team has been working closely with Communities for Children at the Gold Coast to further develop the program to meet the needs of our rural families and children. Act for Kids An Australian charity providing support for children and families who have experienced or are at risk of child abuse and neglect, Act for Kids staff provided training at our Conference to equip our therapy teams to provide assessment and intervention from a trauma-informed perspective. We are also exploring collaborative work with Act for Kids in the Bundaberg region. Triple P BUSHkids has a long association with the Triple P parenting program and all staff received training in Primary Care Triple P at the 2015 Conference. This (and Seminar Training, provided to Psychologists and Family Health Support Workers) has been put into practice across the state. Save the Children BUSHkids partnered with Save the Children to co-facilitate a playgroup in Emerald North. Save the Children also presented at the BUSHkids 2016 Conference around working with vulnerable children and families. Pathways to ResilienceTrust BUSHkids continues to collaborate with Pathways to Resilience Trust to support the needs of children and families in regional, rural and remote locations in Queensland. I would like to acknowledge and thank Clinical Services Manager Susan Harrison and the Clinical Leadership Team for their great efforts across the year; I truly appreciate your tireless dedication to the organisation.

Many thanks to Gail Huggins from BUSHkids Council for her advice and guidance on our clinical direction. Media Quest and APN We continue to work with media agencies, Quest, APN Group and local radio stations, who support our work in helping to promote BUSHkids; we really appreciate all their support. Marketing After the year-long flurry of high-profile activities in 2015, efforts this year have been reorientated towards internal systems and preparing external resources, notably the suite of materials for the Steady Start to School program, with another set of bright signature graphics (see CSM’s report, page 19) created by Matt Tesch from Masthead Design & Creative . Matt has been supporting BUSHkids since creating our bold rebranding in 2011 and continues to play a pivotal role behind the scenes in ensuring all our print and electronic collateral reflects both the underlying spirit and evolving public face of our organisation. As the project manager for and designer of our imminent history book, he has been even more immersed in BUSHkids in recent years and we are fortunate to retain his skills and vast experience as our brand guardian and marketing consultant. Thank you also to Darren Gardiner at iDStyle for your ingenious creative work on behalf of BUSHkids’ marketing and promotions over the year, especially for the eye-catching portable marquees which are helping raise our profile at many outdoor events. Social Media We currently have 636 likes on Facebook, a great increase for 2016, with 151 followers on our Twitter account – please continue to share our pages as much as possible to increase awareness of BUSHkids. The University of Queensland Community Engagement Program The CEP provides students studying courses within the Faculty of Business, Economic and Law (BEL) at UQ with the opportunity to work on actual projects with organisations in the community and not-for- profit sectors, engaging students in an active learning environment as a member of a project team and working with the organisation to create tailored solutions in response to a project brief. A CEP team is developing an integrated social media strategy for BUSHkids that will increase awareness of the organisation and act as a channel to generate donations, the focus of the project determining how awareness and donations can be increased through social media. Thank you to Adrian Harrison and to Administration Manager Tiffany Bannier-King for your time on this project, and to the UQ CEP team – Jessica Robinson, Annabel Liu, Jing Wen and Tiana Musu – for your boundless enthusiasm and insights.

Donor appeals

2015-16

2014-15

946

Pre-Christmas letters mailed out

1,073

306

Number of donations received

290

989

Pre-Tax letters mailed out

1,159

327

Number of donations received

353

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