Early childhood pilot gives refugee children a flying start

The Palaszczuk Government is helping refugee and asylum seeker children engage in early childhood education.

At the launch of a pilot program today, Education Minister Grace Grace said she was proud of the Palaszczuk Government’s efforts to ensure all Queensland children had access to kindergarten.

“This program recognises the challenges faced by many refugee and asylum seeker children and their families,” Minister Grace said.

“It provides families with the assistance they need to get their children into kindergarten, which is an important step to helping improve children’s readiness for school.

“We have allocated more than $677,000 to specialist agencies to ensure this program reaches refugees and asylum seeker families in targeted locations.”

Minister Grace said taking part in early childhood education was a great way for children to learn about the Australian way of life and for parents to connect with other families in the community.

“So far this year, 45 vulnerable children have started kindergarten as part of this program and more are expected to enrol,” she said.

“The enrolled children are from many countries, including Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Burundi, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Iraq and Iran.

“In 2017, more than 50 refugee and asylum seeker children, of kindy age, settled in Queensland but very few accessed early childhood education.”

Minister for State Development and Member for Woodridge Cameron Dick welcomed the hubs for the pilot program at Woodridge North State School, Woodridge State School and St Paul’s School Woodridge.

“It’s great to see this pilot program is already having a positive impact on kindergarten participation, especially in the wonderfully multicultural communities of Woodridge and Logan,” he said.

“Through this pilot, we hope to provide as many kindergarten-aged children as possible with access to quality early childhood education, and I look forward to our next generation and their families reaping the benefits of the lessons this great program has to offer.”

The additional hubs for the pilot program are located at Marsden State School and St Francis College at Crestmead.

The agencies facilitating this pilot program are Access Community Services (Access) and Multicultural Development Australia.

Access will employ an early childhood teacher, as well as a teacher supporting English as an additional language and dialect, at five school-based Community Hubs in Logan.

Multicultural Development Australia will provide support to kindergarten services enrolling refugee and asylum seeker children in Brisbane, Logan, Inala and Toowoomba.

Access pilot co-ordinator Grainne Taia said many children had often suffered some kind of trauma and the pilot was also helping to identify those who needed counselling and bicultural support.

“We also link the children with health and counselling services,” Ms Taia said.

“The early childhood teachers conduct five sessions each per week across five Community Hubs and can cater for a maximum of 30 children in each session.

“These programs can have a life-long positive impact on the children and their families.”

The pilot program began in July last year with six months of planning and will run until the end of 2018.

Funding for the program has been provided under the National Partnership Agreement for Universal Access to Early Childhood Education and is part of the current Queensland Multicultural Action Plan.

Media contact: Adrian Taylor 0448 994 172