West Heidelberg, just 10km north from Melbourne’s CBD, was a temporary home to international sports stars, who stayed in the newly built village for the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games. After the athletes left, the village was converted into public housing.

Today, West Heidelberg is an area that experiences extreme disadvantage within a municipality that is relatively affluent.

The community is culturally diverse, with refugees and migrants from Somalia, Syria, China and India, as well as a proportionally high percentage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander residents and a high number of single-parent families with children.

Banyule Community Health is an integrated multi-disciplinary community health service, is all too aware of the challenges that face many residents of West Heidelberg.

Nina Kelabora, Banyule Community Health’s Lead Health Promotion Officer for Early Literacy, says the suburb’s location amid wealthier suburbs can be challenging.

“This dynamic obscures our children’s needs and means that the suburb can be overlooked for investment,” she said. “It is also difficult to gather data that captures the reality – this can partly be because families seek assistance from outside our area.”

What Banyule Community Health does know however, is that in West Heidelberg, many families experience severe intergenerational trauma and poverty, which can impact on children’s foundational literacy skills development. Children can often start school two years behind wealthier peers and rarely catch up. 

“Cost of living pressures already affect vulnerable families,” Nina said. “Housing stress and food insecurity shows that families struggle to provide material basics for their children. Children are living in more stressed environments with carers experiencing depleted mental health, further impacting their children’s development. 

“The young children often struggle in the classroom, have higher absenteeism, incomplete schooling, and early police contact, affecting job prospects, housing stability, health and other quality of life outcomes.”

The Ross Trust has recently committed to providing $300,000 over three years to expand a successful Banyule Community Health literacy program called ‘We Love Stories’. The project, which began in 2019, addresses the development of oral language, attachment, and other pre-literacy skills.

The new grant will directly support the next step - ‘We Love Stories 0-12’ – by providing funding for staff, training, community workshops, and materials and equipment.

The core activities of the project will formalise the West Heidelberg early years partnerships, consult with services, schools, and families, and encourage data sharing. Importantly, the project will also work to build parent and carer confidence and capacity to access and navigate supports for their children. 

“We’ll strengthen the web of supports around families to enhance children’s early development, ensuring they start school ready to learn,” Nina said. “We will also develop a clearer understanding of the needs of 6–12-year-olds in West Heidelberg while enhancing collaboration among schools, services, and the community to provide better wraparound support for students.”

A West Heidelberg mother of five who volunteers with We Love Stories, said many local families were not aware of available support, or felt ashamed to access it.

“I know of this very well because one of my children has additional needs, I was made to feel ashamed for accessing supports for him,” she said. “Families do not know what they do not know, but with We Love Stories, they can become aware and that is a step in the right direction for both families and children.

“It provides a safe space to be heard and seen without judgement. Every child has the potential to grow and learn when safe environments are provided where their voices are heard and shown that it matters.”

The Ross Trust Senior Grants Manager Meghan Weekes said it was positive to see the success of We Love Stories after the trust’s first grant of $180,000 in 2019.

“There is a clear need to extend support to middle years children,” she said. “We are very pleased to continue our support of the project. It will help reconnect vulnerable families and children with education, build links between overwhelmed schools and agencies, and help to empower a community to find local solutions, build partnerships, trust and long-term solutions.”