BUSHkids Annual Report 2015-16

CENTRES

Centre reports

Inglewood

Mount Isa

Warwick

Read and Grow has become a large part of all of the playgroup sessions that I have offered, with the children really enjoying their story time and activities of making and creating, colouring and singing. Triple P seminar was offered in Stanthorpe. as was 1-2-3 Magic with positive feedback received.

BUSHkids acquired a tender for workforce support through Communities for Children North Queensland . The roll-out of the program has delivered an increasing number of community capacity-building sessions in the Mount Isa community, including Triple P Seminars, Play Seminars, Developmental Milestones presentations and supported playgroups. At the start of 2016 the first BUSHkids- developed Ready Set Prep program was delivered at our Centre, a great opportunity to showcase this inhouse program! Fun Friends, Friends for Life and Triple P seminars have also been offered at kindergartens and schools in the region and Speech Pathology services have been provided at schools, kindergartens and the Mount Isa Centre.

Fun Friends, Friends for Life, PALS and Triple P and 123 Magic continue to be very popular programs. We have seen an increase in community capacity-building opportunities being offered by BUSHkids, including: • Prep Readiness programs • Get Set for Prep talks • Read and Grow – community training • Professional Development for early childhood educators on supporting communication development and clinical support to: • outreach to Yelarbon (SLP and OT) • outreach to Allora (SLP)

ACTIVITYAND OUTPUTS .

I am so enjoying being back working full time and it would be great if there were more hours in the day to get done what I see in my head as being possible. The versatility that we have to offer our services to the Yelarbon, Inglewood and the extended Stanthorpe community is there to grow on.

We had the opportunity to purchase new clinical resources, toys and games from Community Development funding. We are very grateful to be able to replace older items that were in disrepair as well as expand our pretend play toolbox! Our Centre has experienced challenges in the provision of multidisciplinary support due to short staffing. We have addressed this issue by referring to other services in Mount Isa where possible. Identifying another appropriate service was often challenging due to individual service models and staff turnover. This is an ongoing issue.

The new Centre is an open office space which comes with many positives (such as learning about each other’s discipline and easier related clinical discussions) and some negatives (noise levels and interruptions can at times be an issue), but we have effectively managed to avoid this by utilising other spare spaces within the Centre (for report writing, for instance) and by being conscious of the impact each has on another. There are several multidisciplinary therapy rooms in the Centre each being utilised efficiently for individual therapy, group therapy and community workshops. Additional spare ‘floating’ laptops to take into therapy rooms would be beneficial for therapists and admin staff while in the Centre.

IN OUR CENTRE

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