The SCHS Easter Appeal was established to raise money for our parenting services at SCHS.

Everyone at SCHS can make an impact whether it’s at an individual level, at organisational level or at community level. We can all work together to make change and have an impact on the social issues facing our community.

Parenting capacity is impacted by a multitude of differing  social health factors; chronic health issues, poor dental health, drug and alcohol, family violence, divorce,  adult and childhood disability, racism and marginalisation experienced by aboriginal families or refugee families. SCHS is an integral component in assisting clients to address social health issues,  which facilitates developing parenting capacity, as we see many of the above factors daily in our clients; counselling, child health services, drug and alcohol service, men’s behaviour change, dental, chronic disease program, antenatal care.  

The research below demonstrates some of these factors:

* Children and young people in Out of Home Care (OOHC) exhibit a higher prevalence of chronic and complex conditions, involving physical, neurological, developmental, psychological and behavioural difficulties when compared to the average child in Australia.

* Research demonstrates a link between early parenting intervention and assisting parents to address social health issues may reduce requirement for removal of children from their parents. Active skills training with rehearsal for parents of children with externalizing behavior problems delivered in a series of one-on-one and/or group sessions in community-based settings can lead to improved parent-child relationships, less frequent dysfunctional parenting (e.g., harsh discipline), improved parenting competence, and reduced child behavior problems.

* Research has demonstrated the lack of coordinated care and awareness of service provision contributes to increased health issues for children in OOHC ‘to offer continuity of primary health care is pivotal in changing health trajectories in OOHC children and young people’.                                                                         

These findings demonstrate the linkage between social health needs and parenting capcity.

At this stage the size of parenting services at SCHS does not allow the capacity to provide a full service to the Mildura region.  The aim of raising funds is to provide a free standing community parenting service that will be able to fully service the regions parenting needs, working cohesively with the community to reduce the prevalent social issues facing the region as a whole.

The SCHS Easter Appeal is still in its infancy but we hope the Sunraysia community will support this Appeal to raise funds to improve the range of parenting services available locally to support our children's future.