The future of the state’s child and family centres is grim without adequate funding, a parliamentary committee has learned.
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A Legislative Council select committee was formed last year to examine the role of the centres in providing early learning to children, education and support to families and carers, and their broader impact on the communities they are based within.
It will look at government funding of the centres, the need for expansion, and the challenges and benefits of early education and care.
The inquiry is in part a reaction to the government’s plan to establish a lower school starting age from 2020.
Labor and the unions say this plan would be the death knell of many centres in regional Tasmania.
The Ravenswood Child and Family Centre advisory group in its submission to the inquiry said funding provided to centres could not keep pace with demand.
It said that there was a significant need for increased support for social workers and psychologists within their own centre, as well as speech and language support.
"It is vital that these services become part of the staffing resource due to the importance of continuity and building of relationships," the submission said.
"Funding sources which supply these services for six to 12 months really only provides a bandaid to the situation.
"The (child and family centre) is constantly faced with an operational budget which leaves very little or no resource for programs to respond to community wants and needs.”
St Giles in their submission said centres which had struggled to obtain adequate funding to run necessary programs had formed associations to enable fund-raising efforts and to apply for grants.
It said due to the pressure placed on volunteers to perform such activities, it would be fair if there was a fund-matching arrangement established between these centres and the Education Department.
St Giles said it wants to see additional centres opened across the state including in Campbell Town, Deloraine, Scottsdale, Smithton, Ulverstone and on the West Coast.
Neighbourhood Houses Tasmania see the child and family centres as duplicating their own facilities.
Executive officer John Hooper said the government had invested $9.3 million in 28 Neighbourhood House properties, yet built 11 new child and family centres in 2011 for $44 million. "We believe that there should be much more time given to examining the cost effectiveness of the model before it is introduced in more communities and further duplication occurs,” he said.