Our Place

The Our Place approach provides tailored education, health and wellbeing services from a single location, creating an integrated community resource that supports children and families to succeed.

The approach was developed by the Colman Education Foundation, a philanthropic organisation that aims to improve social and educational opportunities for children and their families.

The Colman Education Foundation established the Our Place approach at Doveton College in 2012. Based on the outcomes at Doveton, we are partnering with the Colman Education Foundation to establish ten Our Place sites in selected communities across Victoria.

Key features of Our Place

The Our Place approach supports these communities by providing:

• A single point of entry to the school and the early learning centre to promote engagement of families and support children in their transition from kindergarten to school
• Shared spaces to offer services such as maternal and child health, playgroup, GPs, paediatricians, immunisations, parent support groups, and adult education, training, volunteering and job-seeking services
• Access to tailored health, wellbeing and community services for families and children from one location
• Community Facilitators working on-site to assist families and children to connect to early childhood, education, allied health and wellbeing services.

We build the infrastructure at Our Place sites and the Colman Education Foundation provides Community Facilitators to facilitate allied health and community services, and engage families.

Partnerships with local service providers and community groups are a key feature of the Our Place approach. These partners include:

• early childhood services
• local government
• other government departments
• community health services
• adult education providers
• community and cultural organisations.

The Our Place approach

Our Place sites

The Our Place approach is being implemented in the following communities: