One of the benefits of being enrolled at Children First, is the connections to our range of easy-to-access family services that are enriching, supportive and help your family thrive.
Children First is a service of Growing Potential, a not-for-profit community organisation with a proud history of growing the potential of children, families and communities.
Early Intervention and Disability Support
Our sister company, Growing Early Minds, is a great community based not-for-profit organisation providing early intervention and disability support services to children between 0-16 years.
We have been supporting children and their families across North West and Western Sydney since 1994.
As a registered NDIS and Medicare provider, we will discuss the best pathway and funding options that may be available to your depending on your circumstances, as every family is unique.
What sets Growing Early Minds apart is families can access speech-language pathology, occupational therapy, nutrition, psychology, behaviour and family support all under the one roof. Their services also include cognitive assessments, Autism diagnosis, feeding and nutritional management. Families can visit the Blacktown clinic, or the team can see children in their everyday environments such as at home, child care centres, schools or playgroups.
Growing Early Minds focuses on empowering children and their families by providing the best possible care using modern, evidenced-based practices and a family-centred approach.
Visit the website to learn more about how they can help your child to reach their potential: www.growingearlyminds.org.au
Familylinks
Familylinks is a service of Growing Early Minds, offering supported playgroups for children 0-6 years within five local Mount Druitt primary schools as well as facilitating a variety of other programs.
Playgroups are facilitated by early childhood trained educators and promote inclusion for all backgrounds and abilities. Children are encouraged to explore, investigate, problem-solve, and most importantly have lots of fun with supported, play-based activities.
Familylinks also provides a range of supported parenting programs, workshops and information sessions. These are designed to support, inform, educate, build confidence and develop new skills. They can also assist parents in recognising developmental concerns and provide links to the relevant community, medical or early intervention service providers.
Early Words
Children First has developed a superb resource called Early Words to help parents to develop literacy skills in young children.
Children’s brains are more active than adult brains in the very early years. The Early Words 5 top tips give help with:
1. Looking and listening
2. Talking
3. Singing and rhyming
4. Reading
5. Drawing and writing in 9 developmental stages.
Early Words aims to help families build the basic skills that children need for reading and writing, right from birth.
Check out the Early Words website to look at these resources and for details of our latest work on the project.
We also have a dedicated Aboriginal Early Words website which was developed in partnership with our Western Sydney Aboriginal community. They cover nine stages, from pregnancy to 5 years. Families can look at easy activities that will help bub get ready to read write and yarn well from birth to 5 years.