MEET CLARE BRENNAN
Clare Brennan is the Transition Manager overseeing the building of the First Steps Count Child and Community Centre (FSC), a unique facility in Taree, providing an integrated model of service delivery, coordinating programs and services for children, young people and families as well as serving as a thriving community hub.
The Centre is targeting children aged 0-12, with a specific focus on ensuring that children and their families are supported and ready to start school, and that children are supported through critical periods of transition as they develop.
A Speech Pathologist by profession, Clare has spent the majority of her career working in various clinical and operational roles in NSW Health, including three years as the Speech Pathologist based at Inverell Community Health Centre. More recently, she has been employed by Sydney Children’s Hospital Network, Randwick, as the Rehabilitation Services Manager for Rehab2Kids, an interdisciplinary service offering inpatient and outpatient treatment, rehabilitation and care for children and young people with Acquired Brain Injury, Cerebral Palsy & Movement Disorders, Limb Difference and Spinal Cord Injury and other neurological conditions. Clare says she is constantly inspired by the resilience of children and young people overcoming trauma and disability to achieve their goals.
Clare has a great awareness of the difficulties faced by children and young people to access timely, coordinated, specialised treatment and therapy in regional areas.
“We moved to Taree for my husband’s work and also to offer our kids a more relaxed lifestyle, out of the city. I am so excited to have the opportunity to work with everyone in the community to bring the First Steps Count Child and Community Centre to life!”
How the First Steps Concept Started
The concept started 11 years ago when a small group of community minded people got together and began a conversation about the long term outcomes of children in the Manning Valley and Mid North Coast.
“At this time there was a general recognition that the way programs were being delivered and services operating were not really making a long term difference for children and young people as shown by the data. So this notion of developing a more coordinated approach to the delivery of services and programs for the children of the area, particularly with an early intervention focus in that zero to twelve year old group started to take shape in the form of a community Centre where people feel safe and welcome and they can come and meet together or be connected to services.
“The community were saying that they didn’t feel safe in their own neighbourhoods and they didn’t have that sense of community and there was a general recognition that children were somewhat disengaged from education services, their access to health care was challenging for a multitude of reasons so having a community Centre in that Manning Gardens precinct would allow for people to be able to have a place they could access far more easily rather than rely on cars, taxis and public transport.”
First Steps Count will be built next door to Snugglepot Day Care and behind Manning Gardens Public School. Clare says it will provide a unique facility where existing organisations and service providers can come and provide their services in this unique space. The services will work in partnership and collaborate with each other for the betterment of the community and the way in which the services will be delivered will be based on community need.
The Centre will be driven by a grassroots approach and it’s hoped that the Centre will be overseen by a parent advisory group/community committee so that they can be engaged in the Centre.
“It’s about the community telling us how they want this space to be run.”
Like all things impacted by Covid19 during the past year, the progress of First Steps Count Taree has been slowed. “If we didn’t have the pandemic then we would have been running focus groups and community consultations by now. We have launched a Facebook page to keep the community involved in the project and our website is under construction.”
The Centre has some substantial funding weight behind it…..a $2.5 million building grant from the State Government and a $1.5 million from a philanthropic organisation.
State of the Art Centre
The Centre’s building is being designed and project managed by local architect Russell McFarland and will be built locally by Walter Duber who will use the latest sustainability practices in accordance with certification under the Living Building Challenge. The majority of the materials will be sourced locally and the Centre will aim to generate its own power, reuse its own water, feature community gardens and grow bush tucker and other food sources to be shared with the community in the Centre via cooking classes and help to promote healthy eating and nutritional opportunities for young people.
Working Collaboratively
First Steps Count Taree is working collaboratively on the project with a number of partners including ARACY, the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth. First Steps Count have adopted their vision from The Nest which addresses and measures wellbeing outcomes for children across six key areas:
that all children and youth are valued, loved & safe, have material basics, are healthy, are learning, are participating….. and have a positive sense of identity and culture.
“Another collaboration which is really exciting for us is working with Mid Coast 4 Kids because I see us having the same sense of purpose in bringing organisations together and seeing how we could do things differently such as the Collective Impact approach which has really opened my eyes to what an incredible impact this could have on our community.”
Clare says what she really likes about the Collective Impact framework is that it forces you to challenge what’s always been done but you may not necessarily be getting the desired outcomes. “In fact it was the disjointed and siloed approach to service delivery that was the initial inspiration for First Steps Count so looking at systems and problems holistically as Collective Impact does makes perfect sense.”
Clare says she’s been so impressed with the level of passion and dedication of people working on the frontline to deliver services for children and young people across the Mid Coast region.
“I can see the care in the way they talk about their work and because this region is characterised by disadvantage the need is so great. So often I have conversations with parents who tell me they don’t know how to access these services and so there’s clearly got to be a better way to get this system working for kids. I think the way Mid Coast 4 Kids and First Steps Count can work together could be really complimentary and I’m really looking forward to fostering that relationship. ”
“Let’s get our children to grow up wise, educated and healthy. Whilst our project is not going to solve all the problems of the community at once, it’s a really vital step towards seeing some change, even if they’re small changes for our children such as improved literacy levels, healthy eating, going to school and enjoying the experience, enjoying reading and putting some supports around these families who’ve got a whole lot of stuff going on.”
“It’s about giving people a sense of trust in the system and welcoming support structures. I’ve heard so many stories about people who don’t access services because they’ve been judged or they don’t feel respected and one bad experience like that can spread through a community.”
Clare is excited about the vast opportunities the First Steps Count Child and Community Centre will bring to Taree. “I want to make sure that this Centre is designed to meet the needs of the community and it’s a Centre for everyone to come and use. It will have a conference facility along with meeting and training rooms which opens up amazing opportunities for all types of organisations to  come and work in this beautiful state-of-the-art Centre.
“We have many ideas about how services can come together in this space and share their knowledge, skills and expertise such as lunchtime professional development groups. And there are real opportunities for generating that sense of collaboration and community working together.”
Thank you Clare for bringing your experience and passion to this project to improve the wellbeing of our children in the Mid Coast.
The first sod turning ceremony for this new facility took place on the 21st April 2021 to mark the commencement of construction of Stage 1 of the FSC project. This will deliver approximately two-thirds of the overall build and will include the multi-purpose conference facility, meeting and training rooms, office space for a co-located service provider, the beautiful multipurpose activity room as well as consult rooms for various purposes including therapy, visiting medical consults and hearing tests.