07 April 2010
Mornington MP David Morris has called on the Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development to provide additional early childhood intervention places in the Southern Metropolitan Region to accommodate soaring demand.
Despite a rapidly growing population on the Peninsula and in neighbouring Frankston and Casey Councils the entire Southern Metropolitan Region has been allocated only 40 additional places. This falls well short of the 344 allocated to the Northern Metropolitan Region, the 290 in the Western Metropolitan Region and the 94 in the Loddon Mallee Region.
Southern Metropolitan Region is the home to 16% of Victoria’s children under 5 yet has received only 4% of places. Frankston alone has 8,300 children under four years of age and yet the 2008 figures showed that over a two-year period there was only three places provided.
Mr Morris recently met with a major local provider who confirmed that if the capacity was there, they could fill 20 spaces tomorrow.
Providing the services necessary to give our children the best possible start in life is the core business of government, and it is doubly so when a child has developmental delays or a disability. We know that early childhood intervention works and that it works best when it is provided early.
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