Support service adds to the family

PARENTS and carers will now have more options for assistance following a trial expansion of the City of Ballarat’s family support services.

Parent Place, the Sturt Street-based facility aimed at helping families, is now being offered at four additional locations as part of an outreach trial funded through VicHealth.

Mayor Cr Des Hudson said the expansion will allow the services offered at Parent Place to be more accessible.

“Parent Place has been a really successful model for the City of Ballarat but a centralised model doesn’t always work,” he said.

“For many of the parents they’ll see that benefit of just being able to be in their local neighbourhood and form connections with other parents.

“Services include our parent and play and maternal and child health type services as well.

“We’ll continue to explore those other areas to be able to bring on and expand the service even further.”

The outreach sessions will take place at the Delacombe Salvation Army building on the first Friday of every month as well as the Sebastopol Library on the second Monday of the month.

They are also set for the Lucas Community Hub on the third Tuesday of the month, and Stockland Wendouree on the fourth Thursday of the month.

Kathleen Huf has been regularly visiting Parent Place for the past year and said the Delacombe location will be more convenient to travel to from her Smythes Creek home.

“It’s definitely better to have this in more places,” she said.

“When I had my second child it was tricky to balance everything so it was good to have a place to go where my older son Raiden could go and I could feed the baby.

“I found the lactation support very helpful and they have a child behaviour person to talk about any problems with that.”