New NT centres to help parents raise kids

New Families as First Teachers centres will open around the NT to help indigenous parents in remote areas raise their children.

NT FIRST TEACHERS CENTRE

Amos and Sarah Garawirrtja, and their daughter Seyani,2, at the Families as First Teachers centre. (AAP)

Shantalie is 18 and still completing high school at Shepherdson College in her home town of Galiwinku on Elcho Island.

She is also a mother of a two-year-old girl, Isaiah, and is sitting down with her husband Quinton, also 18, reading and singing to their daughter at the Families as First Teachers centre on her Elcho Island home.

Amos and Sarah Garawirrtja, aged 26 and 18, are playing with their two-year-old daughter Seyani at the centre along with about 50 other children and their mothers and some fathers.

The town of Galiwinku on Elcho Island is about 1000km or an hour's flight from Darwin, but the remote aboriginal community is a world away from Western society.

The program aims to empower parents in remote indigenous communities to raise and educate children who will need to be healthy, able to speak English and attend school if they are to succeed in the world.

"I come here every day, I like it because there are so many other people here, you feel good," Mr Garawirrtja said.

"While here we are teaching the children, playing games, reading books, colouring, singing songs."

The idea is to get children ready for school by focusing on early learning literacy and numeracy.

But is is also about making sure families are aware of and celebrate being involved as the first teachers of their child.

Health and nutrition advice and testing is also provided to tackle risks that are higher in Indigenous communities, such as hearing loss when ear infections are not addressed.

The FaFT program will be expanded in next week's Northern Territory budget.

By next year the total number operating in the Territory will be 53 (up from 39 centres currently and 27 in 2016).

Such programs are related to the $230-odd million the NT Government committed after a Royal Commission into its strife torn child protection and juvenile detention systems, with a focus on the "first 1000 days" of a child's life being critical.

"The FaFT program is so important because parents and families are children's first and most important teachers and it supports them in a culturally sensitive way," NT Education Minister Selena Uibo said.

"Being ready for day one of school is essential for kids' later success and ability to contribute to society, both socially and economically.

"It shapes a child's ability to thrive at school, stay healthy and be socially connected, it takes a village to raise a child."

The FaFT Program empowered families to raise strong children in both their Indigenous cultural and non-Indigenous worlds, FaFT family educator Meg Hewett said.

More than half of FaFT employees are Aboriginal.

The seven communities are Robinson River, Areyonga, Urapunga, Barunga, Laramba, Mount Allan and Milikapiti.

The Education budget is $1.08 billion, with every school to receive $300,000 during the current government term to upgrade their infrastructure.


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Published 29 April 2019 5:50pm
Source: AAP


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