Best Start For Our Community Families

Merran Flemming, Best Start Community Facilitator, City of Ballarat, spoke to our club meeting on 2nd December, 2009 on what is being done to help with the health and wellbeing of families and children.

Merran explained that the aim of the programme was to improve the health development, learning, safety and well-being of all children in our community from pregnancy onwards.

One way of improving the profile of the programme and to establish a reputation of Ballarat being a child friendly city has been the publication of the booklet City of Ballarat Family & Children's Services Guide.

Included in the publication is a Breast Feeding Charter to encourage a higher uptake of breast feeding in the community. One way of making it easier for mothers is active encouragement of businesses to sign up as supporters of the initiative.

Other aspects of Best Start are playgroups for Dads, the Aboriginal Community, Premature Babies and New Residents.

To demonstrate leadership in this area, the City of Ballarat now requires all Council Officer reports to address the impacts on families and children. Examples of this include Flexible Workplaces, Child Access and improvements to Service Linkages.

To assist with future planning, children in the 3-5 year and 10-12 year age groups were surveyed on what they liked and disliked about Ballarat. The younger ones tended to focus on fairies and dragons but some very good considered comments came from the older group. Many of these comments addressed the environment and community amenity.

Click Here to visit Best Start at the City of Ballarat's website

Click Here to visit DEECD's Best Start website