Kayla Graham from Ngroo Education Aboriginal Corporation speaking
Hi, I'm Kayla. We're here at our Early Learning Expo at Emerton Youth Recreation Centre, in the middle of Mount Druitt. So excited today, all of the early educators in the area are here and ready to answer any questions that families have in making that enrolment process a smooth one and a positive one as well.
Aunty Joanne Horton from Ngroo Education Aboriginal Corporation speaking
We work so closely connected with families because we know that exposure gives them a good predisposition towards learning. By the time they get in kindergarten, they’ve got this positive attitude towards learning and that’s what I love about Ngroo—is because that education is the thing that's going to change the discourse of Aboriginal people.
Jade Community Member and Parent speaking
Well, I’ve been with Ngroo since my kids were babies, and they've grown up with Ngroo—as I said—a second family. So they’ve always been very helpful, the kids get along with them and they’ve made friends. Then they’ve gone on to school, but as I said, if it wasn't for Ngroo—especially taking the kids to playgroups and stuff like that, because there's not a lot of places to take kids these days.
Tabatha speaking, Community Member and Parent
The struggle is real, because to get access to anything for your child at the moment, is real. So paediatricians, you know, NDIS, Ngroo are in there now helping my eight-year-old who has been cut off from NDIS. His speech has stopped and he has learning delays, but because he's not properly diagnosed, he can’t get help. So they've gone in at the moment, and every week they're—and he loves it, he knows when she comes in, and he knows because he knows Jo and he has a good relationship with her, it helps. Even my kids, as I said, when we walk in and they see Jo, and she'll scream Jo! and even the rest, like she knows they'll say hi, because she knows who they are and that bond with them—if you have a bond with my children, then you have a bond with me for life.
Aunty Joanne speaking
We’re such an integral part of the Mount Druitt community, we are able to offer a variety of services—because not one model fits all—and we ask the community what they want and then we do our programs around that. Instead of us assuming we are the knowledge holders, it's not us, it's actually the communities that are the knowledge holders. They tell us what they want and we do our best to deliver that service to our families.
Jade speaking
If you’re having a hard time and stuff, you can always lean on them, doesn't matter what it is. Especially with Jo—she’s like a mother for everyone, she's a mother hen Jo. So we’ve known her for years, she's an absolute saint. They've all come and gone but Jo, she's one of those ones that—you know, as I said, she's like a mother.
Hannah Moore from Greater Western Aboriginal Health Service speaking
I think a lot of the challenges, potentially could come down to the knowledge and education of what is available and how to access those services. We try to take our services into the schools. So we have our speech pathologists go into the schools and do screenings on the kids there, make it a bit more accessible, but also we try to juggle the appointments around to suit the needs as much as possible for them.
Tenequa Bolt from Greater Western Aboriginal Health Service speaking
So we have Connected Beginnings, which is right behind me, they work from two to five. They get kids into speech therapy—they get speech therapy, counselling, they help parents with parents counselling as well if they need—and then you also have
NDIS, they help as well, because we're well connected with them. Yeah, there's heaps of services here that actually help parents and also kids as well.
Donald Mosby from Ngroo Education Aboriginal Corporation speaking
It’s all about giving back to the community I think and just helping them understand what's out there at the end of the day. I think what Ngroo and Connected Beginnings can do to benefit communities by doing that in a lot of ways.
Aunty Joanne speaking
And again, I go back to the kinder first, we need kids to have that positive predisposition towards learning. If they have that they go, oh my god, I want to go to Year 12 and then I want to go to TAFE and then I want to go to Uni. If they have a really bad experience, they're like, when the hell am I going to get out of this place. So we want them to have that oh my god what can I continue learning?
This video was produced by SNAICC- National Voice for our Children and the Ngroo Education Aboriginal Corporation. It features families and staff from the Ngroo and Greater Western Aboriginal Health Service Connected Beginnings team in western Sydney. The speakers describe what works well to support young children with developmental concerns, delays and disabilities and their families. The video supports practitioners and families to apply the principles and practices set out in the new National Best Practice Framework in Early Childhood Intervention that was commissioned by the Department of Social Services.