The Whittlesea Early Parenting Centre is nearly completed and is due to commence services on Monday 27th November 2023
Early Parenting Centres (EPC) are a free primary health service that provides specialist support for Victorian families with children from birth to four years of age. EPC’s strive to support happy, healthy, safe and thriving babies and toddlers by promoting the parent-child relationship, and equipping parents with strategies to achieve their parenting goals. EPC’s delivers flexible, targeted services that aim to enhance the parent-child relationship and support parents with strategies to achieve their parenting goals.
These goals are often in areas such as:
- sleep and settling
- child behaviour
- parent and child health and wellbeing.
EPC’s recognise that the health and wellbeing of the primary caregiver, and whole family is vital to children’s development and outcomes.
Who Can Access an Early Parenting Centre?
All Victorian families with children from birth to four years who need more specialised or targeted support can access EPC services. This includes those who need to:
- strengthen parenting capacity and skills
- enhance parent-child relationships
- increase parental confidence in responding to their infant/toddlers needs
- build on their family’s link with their community.
Early Parenting Centre’s are funded to provide:
- Residential: 24-hour multi-day centre-based intensive early parenting programs.
- Day stay: centre-based day programs
- Home-based care is intended to be flexible and provide additional support to families to work towards their identified goals. Home-based care might be provided as a standalone service, or in conjunction with a mix of residential or day programs. This service delivery could be provided in the home, via telehealth, or through a mix of modalities. For example – it could be two 2-hour in-home visits, or a 2-hour home visit and a 2-hour telehealth service.
- Group services: group-based programs attended by families, which are designed to improve parent-child relationships and interaction.
Contact information and how to refer your patient will be communicated soon.
Last reviewed November 17, 2023.