Tuesday, 20 September 2022

Cradle to Kinder programs

Ms MAXWELL (Northern Victoria) (17:57): (2130) My adjournment is to the Minister for Health, and the action I seek is for the minister to reinstate funding to the successful early intervention Cradle to Kinder programs. I must say I was very excited when the government announced in 2021 that it was investing $335 million over four years in early intervention programs. This funding included Cradle to Kinder and Aboriginal Cradle to Kinder programs, but what we did not know was that this funding was not secure for the long term and the sector has been fighting each year to retain a program that they believe delivers value and real change. Now funding for this program has been cancelled.

The Cradle to Kinder program was established in 2010. It commenced with 10 programs. It has grown to have a strong reputation and be used by many agencies and is highly valued by sector workers and families alike. Cradle to Kinder has been targeted to mothers aged 25 years and under who are identified as at risk or vulnerable and provides intensive case management and engagement when they are pregnant or within six weeks after their child is born, until their child is four years of age. This is strong, early intervention and one of the few that delivers sustained engagement with families over critical formative years. Referrals to Cradle to Kinder come from multiple areas, including child protection but often from maternal and child health services or other social services when they are known to be vulnerable but before child protection have entered the picture.

The government has shifted the funding for Cradle to Kinder across to the family preservation and reunification response. This program is fine, but it is nothing like Cradle to Kinder. Instead of engaging with a parent while their child is in utero, when they are at risk or identified as vulnerable, the reunification response referral pathway is through child protection, which everyone says is too late. When child protection is involved, it is harder for services to engage, and some behaviours are entrenched. The family preservation and reunification response offers very intensive engagement, but it stops after six months. This abandons families during critical transition periods of a child’s engagement, when sleep cycles and behaviours change, and this can trigger stress and upheaval for parents. We know that Monash partnered with MacKillop Family Services to conduct an evaluation of Cradle to Kinder, and the final evaluation is still to be published. We know anecdotally, from speaking to many people across the sector, that this program works. In speaking with those workers, they reinforced to me a strong view that instead of providing a suite of services that can meet the individual needs of clients, we continue to make them fit in a box, and it does not work. I implore the government to restore investment in this program. There is nothing else like it, and vulnerable families need it.