sherbrooke – mission accomplished

Me with centre manager, Karen. It's been quite a journey
to save long day care in the Dandenong Ranges, but we're
well and truly there.
 

It was great to attend Sherbrooke Family and Children’s Centre Open Day last weekend. It’s a wonderful centre providing community based long day care in an integrated setting.

The open day was in celebration of the final completion of the project which saw the Upwey Hall integrated with Sherbrooke Family and Children’s Centre.

The centre is significant in the history of my journey into local government, the fight to save the centre first started back in 2004 when the council of the day wanted the centre closed and I was one of the parents fighting to keep it open. Part of the campaign strategy was to run in the local council elections in 2005, and the rest is history.

Claire, the spokesperson the Save Sherbrooke Children's
Centre Campaign and centre chef, Antonio. We are all
immensely pleased with the end result - it's a fantastic facility!

It’s terrific 9 years later to see a thriving, vibrant $7.4million facility providing much needed good quality, community based, long day care to families throughout the Dandenong Ranges.

I have spent many long hours fighting for this centre and it’s great to see it now in all its glory, a great collaboration between all three tiers of government with federal funding of $1.6million, state funding of $0.5million and council funding of $5.3million.

The hall looks great, and it’s great to know it’s now back and available for community use.

The development is a great example of extensive community consultation as well as determination to see the project fulfilled.

sherbrooke family and children's centre update

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of a site visit of the Sherbrooke Family and Children's Centre. Despite the rainy weather the construction is going well and keeping to timelines.

These timber columns are a wonderful part of the design (yes they are from a sustainable source and not native forest) and will support the roofline of the walkway between the various pavilions housing the kinder and long day care children.

It's a wonderful thing to stand amongst the construction site and see a political dream fast becoming a reality.

This project is very dear to my heart, the mooted closure of Sherbrooke Children's Centre in 2004 was the reason I ran for council. Since then I have been a keen advocate for children and long day care in the Dandenong Ranges. Click here for some of the background.

I've long wondered what the view is on the other side of the these windows, locals driving along Burwood Highway will be familiar with them from the front, but from the inside they provide a view, no matter how big or small.

The building has been designed on passive ecological sustainability design principles, this pipework is for the hydronic heating in the 'baby's room'.

all systems go for children's hub

report from the roundtable - 28th April
At this meeting of council the development of the Children's Hub in Upwey was considered. Approval of the hub would see the development proceed to planning application stage and inform the conditions around it's development, firstly that the proposed service be based on the business plan developed for the service and secondly that the design support the operational model for a 110 place long day care facility.

There has been extensive consultation around the development of the hub, for a bit of history visit blog September 08, blog November 08 and blog March 09.

Me standing outside the soon to be redeveloped Sherbrooke Children's Centre. It is a great turnaround for the centre who, five years ago, were facing closure in 2009. The community should be very pleased with their efforts to save Sherbrooke Children's Centre, all those weekly campaign strategy meetings were well worth it.

To pull together such a diverse range of users of the site and move forward in a positive and inclusive way has been a great example of community consultation. There have been many meetings to talk about the proposal with contributions by the broader community, Long Day Care users, Upwey Hall users, Maternal and Child Health Services, allied children's services, Pre School and Toy Library. It has been a terrific experience to be part of the Project Control Group and the Community Reference Group as a councillor representative.

The staff of the shire have done a fantastic job of capturing the views and aspirations of the community and I thought it was important to put that on public record.

Both the State and Federal Governments have supported the development of the Children's Hub with a combined contribution of $2.1 million towards the project. The hub will be a great example of integrated children’s services which has been shown to deliver very positive outcomes for the early years and for families.

If we get it right in the early years we get it right for life. Investing in the early years is a great long term investment in our community. Studies have shown that investment in the early years pays back seven fold down the line. We have a development that we can be very proud of.

I'm pleased to say that the vote to support the proposed Children's Hub was unanimous.

childrens hub one step closer...

It was a wonderful moment in my time as a councillor to be able to attend a recent community meeting to talk about the development of a Children’s Hub for the Dandenong Ranges.


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It marked an important time for me in securing the long term future of Sherbrooke Children’s Centre (SCC).

Prior to me being elected to council in 2005, SCC faced an uncertain future, was facing closure by 2009 with very little support from the council of the day.


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April 2005: The SOSCC campaign received a lot of media coverage, this story was to commemorate 1 year of fighting to save SCC.

I was part of a group of parents (Save Our Sherbrooke Children’s Centre) who fought furiously to save SCC. I have worked very hard to raise the profile of children’s issues and the importance of good quality, community based long day care since my election to council. The hard work has paid off and there has been a complete turnaround and reinvestment in children’s services. Part of this investment includes the development and building of a Children’s Services Hub to cater for families of the Dandenong Ranges to the tune of over $5 million.


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September 2004: SCC was voted "The year of the built environment: our favourite place".

The community are excited about the prospect of a centre dedicated to the provision of children’s and family services.

The meeting was to talk about what sort of opportunities are available in the development of the hub, of course long day care, pre school, toy library and maternal child health services are part of the mix but some of the additional uses could be playgroup, gymbaroo, intervention services, family counselling, school holiday programs, mobile library visits, computer training for parents, the list goes on and on and the prospects are immense.

I am very keen to see the Children’s Hub used as a centre of excellence and utilised as a training facility for workers in the childcare industry. I think the hub could be a shining example of best practice for children’s services in local government.

I look forward to working with the community on this project and giving our children and their families the best start in life.