Communities

About the community

The Tuggeranong community is situated in the South of Canberra and spans across 117 square kilometres and includes 19 Suburbs. The name Tuggeranong came from an old Aboriginal expression meaning “cold plains”. There is a major shopping centre and a lake that is situated in the heart of Tuggeranong. The population of Tuggeranong in 2011 was 86,900. 2.1% of those are of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander decent, children 0-14 years made up 20.5% of the population and 14% were single parents.

Tuggeranong and the Let's Read program

The Let’s Read program in Tuggeranong is being implemented by two key community agencies, The Tuggeranong Child and Family Centre and Communities@Work who both work with child and families at risk with children 0-5 Years. The Let’s Read Program is provided to families who are participants on the Parents as Teacher Program (PAT) which is a home visiting program for parents of children 0-3 years providing families with information, support, and encouragement to assist parents with positively engaging with their children.

Community stories

NAIDOC Week, 2016

During NAIDOC Week  in July, a Let's Read room was set up at Marymead Community Services to engage and train Aboriginal parents to read with their children. Ten trained community professionals conducted the training. At the end of the session each child was presented with a book.

The event was planned and delivered by 6 community services working collaboratively to engage families and children they work with. The Let's Read activity was linked with the theme of education and culture and an opportunity for The Smith Familyto engage the more vulnerable families. The event promoted partner services to increase their capacity to engage families and promote emergent literacy.

The NAIDOC Week event was attended by over 200 children, young people and families from the Aboriginal and non Aboriginal communities. A total of 32 families were taken through the training and 102 packs were handed out.

Olga Srbovski | Regional Programs Manager | The Smith Family

Let's Read training, 2016

Let's Read Training was held on 24^th August in ACT, where 10 participants from 5 new community organizations attended the training to discover ways they could engage their participants in the new Community Model for Let’s Read. The organizations participating include: Narrabundah ELC, Tuggeranong Child and Family Centre, Belconnen Child and Family Centre, Goodstart ELC Kambah.

NAIDOC Week, 2015

On 9th July 2015, during NAIDOC week, The Smith Family Office in Woden held a NAIDOC week event that was attended by over 50 children and families and each child who attended and was involved in the activities offered on the day was provided a Let's Read bag. There were 60 packs delivered to families on the day and because the focus was NAIDOC week, each pack contained the Indigenous resources and books.

This celebration provided the opportunity to offer the program to families who attend the event and whom we may not have other wise reached at the usual places of delivery. It also helped to ensure parents have been given consistand messaging during the event.

This event was instrumental in engaging families in the program, and to reiterate the message about the importance of emergent Literacy to Indigenous families in the community. It was also an opportunity for other community organisations to witness the program delivery and potentially recruit them as partners if appropriate. They community has come together in this circumstance to provide families with not only a fun event bit a learning experience for all of the family members attending.

Sally Duncan, Team Leader ACT/SNSW For Learning For Life Program

Let's Read launch, 2014

The Let's Read Launch in the Tuggeranong Community was held at the Tuggeranong Child and Family Centre on 26^th March 2014. People from all The Smith Family, ACT Government and Communities @ Work were invited as well as the Minister for Disability, Children and Young People, Minister Joy Burch, along with some local families who access the Centre regularly.

The program will be delivered to families across the Tuggeranong community who access the Parents as Teachers Program and other playgroups that are held at the Tuggeranong Child and Family Centre and Communities @ Work, hopefully reaching more than 250 children within the next year.

Approximately 50 people attended the launch. It was opened by Aunty Agnes Shae who welcomed us to country, followed by Mark Collis who is the Executive Director OCYFS and The Smith Families ACT/NSW RPM Pierina Luchessi and Minister Joy Burch who spoke about the importance of reading with young children.  We were lucky enough to have local author Tracey Hawkins, who wrote “Max meets a Monster” who spoke about her experiences as a writer and stayed afterwards to read her story to the children.

The event included activities for the children and storytelling.  Unfortunately it was raining on that particular day and the activities that had been planned outside had to be cancelled, however all in all it was a fantastic morning with lots of yummy food, some of which was made and donated to us by our local VIEW clubs.

The free local paper in Canberra (The Chronicle) was also there to produce an article on Let’s Read which can be found here.

 Sally Duncan | Team Leader for ACT/Goulburn and Wagga | The Smith Family

Sponsors

The Snow Foundation is a not-for profit organization supporting the Canberra communities and were able to assist the Tuggeranong Let’s Read Program with the required funding.