Early childhood program Strong Minds in the Early Years receives new funding. Social Futures General Manager of Children Youth and Families, Melissa Gordon, speaks to ABC Gold Coast.
Strong Minds in the Early Years receives new funding post Cyclone Alfred. Social Futures General Manager of Children Youth and Families, Melissa Gordon, speaks to Sarah Cumming on ABC Gold Coast.
“Strong Minds in the Early Years was an initiative that we developed back as a response to the 2022 flooding on the northern rivers. We designed it in a strengths-based way with clinical play therapists to really look at how the flooding had impacted these young children.
It was targeted at children zero to five years old, but it was in an education setting, so in their preschool settings where their educators had also been impacted. People had lost everything here and these little people had lost their blankies, their pets, and the process of emotions was really big for them.
It was really about getting down with the children through play therapy and Jack, who is one of our amazing puppets, was just the right match for these little people to express their big feelings and know it was safe to talk about those feelings.”
“Puppets are small.
Puppets aren’t like big adults.
Puppets are safe.
Puppets can relate those same feelings back to a child without being intimidating.
Jack taught these little people how to do some therapeutic breathing and identify and put names to emotions. He was just so relatable with them.”
“We’re really excited that we were fortunate enough to receive some further funding post ex-tropical Cyclone Alfred to be able to offer it to South Gold Coast and the top end of Northern New South Wales because we know if we can get in there early and provide some therapeutic supports, these children build better resilience.
They’re equipped with some calming strategies to identify the big feelings, reducing the likelihood of post-traumatic stress disorder as well.
It’s all about early intervention and the outcomes that we achieve through the modelling conducted on the northern rivers was just outstanding.”
“The feedback was extraordinary, and we got some great feedback from the little people as well who said that things like they really missed Jack when Jack left, but they felt safe.
They felt like they could face the rain again. The rain was a big trigger, and they said that Jack helped them process to be able to sit in a rain shower or a storm and feel safe.
But if we look at some of the data that we captured, 100% of children felt safe within their families when exited, they felt 97% had improved in their wellbeing as well, and 100% of them were really satisfied with the service.
It was just a beautiful program. Our clinical play therapist, her approach was just so beautiful. She related so well to the children.”
Strong Minds in the Early Year will be live on 1st July this year.
You can learn more about the program here >>
This program is funded by the Waratah Education Foundation Ltd
