Projects

UnitingCare Victoria and Tasmania manage a wide variety of projects on behalf of the network. Not all projects will be featured on this page and you should contact the relevant team member or watch e-news for details of anything not listed here.

Early Years Strategic Plan

The care and protection of children is a key missional objective of the Uniting Church . We recognise that children are a gift from God and that the care and education of children is a vital end in itself. As a church with a strong social justice focus, we value children and are committed to excellence the provision of early years services.

UnitingCare Victoria and Tasmania (UCV&T) provides a range of early years services. These include universal services as well as related specialised services that respond to the needs of children that have particular vulnerabilities e.g. disability.

UCV&T is developing an Early Years Strategic Plan to clearly articulate why the Uniting Church provides early years services in Victoria, strategic priorities for the development of these services in the next five years, and viable models to achieve this.

As part of developing the Early Years Strategic Plan, UCV&T will engage and have meaningful discussion with a wide range of people including:

• CEOs, cluster managers and service delivery staff of agencies currently managing early years services
• Managers and service delivery staff of existing ‘stand-alone’ early years services.
• Congregations associated with early years services
• Presbyteries
• People who use early years services
• Community representatives with an interest in early years services
• Members of advisory committees
• Representatives of the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and the Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, The Centre for Community Child Health, Kindergarten Parents Victoria and Community Child Care.

Whilst the focus of the plan is services in Victoria , UnitingCare Tasmania will be engaged in consultations about the UCV&T Early Years Strategic Plan particularly the vision for early years services. UnitingCare Tasmania is a significant provider of early years services with Scots Child Care in Hobart . It is recognised that UnitingCare Tasmania will be developing a state-wide plan for all services in Tasmania and that its early childhood services operate in a different state government context. It is expected that the development of these plans will inform each other.

The project is overseen by a Steering Group comprising the Director and staff of UCV&T, Chief Executive Officers and managers of agencies that provide early years services, a congregational minister, and a Presbytery Minister – Mission and Education.

Workshop

A workshop was held on 21 July 2009 to develop a shared vision for UCV&T’s early years service. This was the first part of the conversation about the Early Years Strategic Plan and will be followed by consultations in metropolitan and regional areas in September to develop models of implementing the vision for early years services.

Our aim is to involve a broad range of people that reflects the diversity of early years services - metropolitan and regional communities; services that are part of a cluster and those that are single services; congregational and presbytery ministers; congregation members; managers and staff of services; members of advisory groups, and parents of young children.

The program and outcomes from this workshop are available from this page.

 

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