Marcia Armstrong, Principal Maternal and Child Health Nurse Advisor
As maternal and child health nurses, you are the universal service in Victoria under school age, and you are in a prime position to facilitate the enrolment of all our vulnerable children into kindergarten.
Christine Reid, Social Worker – Enhanced Maternal and Child Health, Melton City Council
Early Start Kinder provides up to 15 hours of free or low cost to eligible three-year-old children. Children need to be three years old by the 30 April in the year that they would attend.
Melanie Donaldson, Early Childhood Educator
Families that are eligible for ESK are families that are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander families and also families that are known to Child Protection or that are referred to Child First by Child Protection.
Marcia Armstrong, Principal Maternal and Child Health Nurse Advisor
Maternal and Child Health nurses through the universal and enhanced program can identify those children eligible for Early Start Kindergarten and particularly at the 2-year key stage visit, they can welcome families to enrol in Early Start Kindergarten and facilitate that enrolment for the families through identifying local services that the families can enrol in.
Nicole Nicolson, Enhanced Maternal and Child Health Nurse
It’s really important for Maternal and Child Health nurses to identify the eligibility of families for Early Start Kinder, if they feel time-poor and they are not able to complete the applications or assist the families with completing applications it’s really important that they access other supports like Central Kinder enrolments, as well as other care teams that are involved with these families.
Melanie Donaldson, Early Childhood Educator
We’re able to collaborate with the Maternal and Child Health nurses to provide better outcomes for the child as a whole, so if something is identified in the appointment with the Maternal and Child Health nurse, we can work with them to build strategies and arrange specific activities within our program to provide a better outcome for the child.
Christine Reid, Social Worker – Enhanced Maternal and Child Health, Melton City Council
I’ve been really lucky to work with Maternal and Child Health nurses quite a lot over the last couple of years, and what I know is that you’re very busy and you don’t always have time to have lengthy discussions, so my advice would be to have discussions early, talk about eligibility, talk about the benefits as early as you can, give information to parents over and over again because we find quite often they need the information repeated to them.
Trish, Parent
The Maternal and Child Health nurses, I think right from the start need to be opening, not just ‘how’s your baby, and how are they sleeping?’ all of that, things like… at regular appointments ‘have you had any issues, have you had any concerns’ explain Child FIRST… and also explain that just having involvement with Child Protection does not mean you have failed, it means that at some point you’ve needed help.
So since both my boys started with kinder, they both had extreme separation anxiety both from being away from me and being away from each other. They’re 11 months apart, so I had one start, and one at home with me and he had to get used to having a few hours without his brother. So as I watched the younger one realise he was going to be okay, and the older one realise that he can make friends and I’m going to come back, and their confidence started to grow, and they started to develop their own interests.
Marcia Armstrong, Principal Maternal and Child Health Nurse Advisor
Early Start Kindergarten is available in-sessional kindergartens as well as funded kindergarten programs in long daycare centres.
Marcia Armstrong, Principal Maternal and Child Health Nurse Advisor
Early Start Kindergarten will continue to be available through the roll-out of Three-Year-Old Kindergarten across the State.
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As of 2021, Early Start Kindergarten is now available to children from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds. For more information about Early Start Kindergarten, contact your regional department office or search for Early Start Kindergarten at www.vic.gov.au
Updated