KDK are very grateful to the Greenbank Services Club for their continue support of the local community with their Community Benefit Foundation. With their support we have been able to install a defibrillator which is vital in cardiac emergencies, and immediate access can be life-saving.
With Child Protection week running from the 3-9 September KDK will be running a week long game board tournament.
Our board game tournament aims to encourage children and families to participate in some friendly competition while learning about child protection and safety.
Games will reflect topics such as identifying and reporting abuse, safe online behavior, and healthy relationship skills.
Events will run from 3-9 September in the Community Hall from 3pm
Our amazing sponsor –
All children deserve to learn about our ancient country and the rich and diverse culture of First Nations peoples that continue to this day. By embedding culture into our service, our educators can input the wonder of Indigenous knowledge, and support Aboriginal children’s sense of identity and belonging, as well as promoting a culture of understanding and respect towards cultural diversity for all children.
Providing opportunities for all of our educators to establish relationships with community members, and participate in events and community activities so it becomes a shard team experience.
We invite our community elders into our service for morning tea and we respectfully ask if they could tell our educators, families and children some historical information regarding the local land apon which we live.
Uncle Barry Watson is a great inspiration for our children, he loves to sit and chat about his heritage and the land upon which we live, we apricate his time.
Transitioning to primary school can be a difficult experience of anxiety and the unknown, particularly coming out of COVID when most children may have developed separation anxiety with the expectation of seeing their parents all day – every day. Our professional and experienced educators are involved in the transition for prep children every year as we assist the school and parents from the home environment to school and then OSHC. With this, we have a few tips and tricks to help your little one’s transition to primary school:
Prepare them on what to expect
It’s important to detail exactly where they’ll be dropped off and picked up from, what to expect when they’re there and who they can talk to when you’re not there so they can be confident for their first week!
A Quick Drop off
It can be an anxious experience for both the parent and child to separate to an unknown environment, but they are in the best care they can be in. The moment you show any level of uncertainty, this can result in a difficult transition from home to school. So, keep the drop off experience confident with a quick goodbye. There may be a few calls for your name, a run to the door or even tears, but this is normal! We can guarantee you that 99% of the time, the moment you’re out of sight, they start to settle in.
Transitioning to Outside School Hours Care (OSHC)
We recommend meeting your OSHC team and having an orientation at the service before their first day so they know who will be picking them up from their classroom. They may have forgotten that they were going to OSHC on a particular day, so seeing a familiar face will support this transition.
Positive Reinforcement and Open Communication
Your child is going through new experiences every day as they navigate relationship building and learning new skills (social, emotional, physical and academic), so taking the time every day to have a conversation about their experiences that day and reinforcing this through positive language and encouragement can make a huge impact on how they perceive school. This communication should also continue through to the school and OSHC as you can’t rely on your child to tell you everything. So be sure to check in with your child’s teachers and OSHC educators on how your child is progressing and how you can support them.
One of the many ways we support children’s development whilst in our care is by giving them the opportunity to express themselves through play.
Play is our brain’s favourite way of learning! Through play, children learn how to interact with others and reach key developmental milestones.
Children can benefit from play in a wide range of ways, including;
Physical – Active play helps kids with coordination, balance, motor skills, and spending their natural energy – encouraging healthy habits that your child can carry through to adulthood.
Emotional – During play, kids learn to cope with emotions like fear, frustration, anger and aggression. Plus, by giving kids a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, play can help build kids’ confidence and self-perception.
Social – Playing with others helps kids negotiate, collaborate, compromise, share and much more! These important early lessons help children understand others and the world around them, enabling them to recognise and respond to others’ feelings, share, show affection and build friendships.
Cognitive – Children learn to think, read, remember, reason and pay attention through play. Problem solving, puzzles and strategy-based games help reinforce critical thinking skills.
Creative – By allowing imaginations to run wild during play, kids create new worlds, form unique ideas and much more! Whether it’s a made-up game or a creative arts & crafts activity, play provides children the freedom to explore new possibilities and think outside the box.
Communication – Play lets kids exchange thoughts, information, and messages. Creating good communicators — that’s the genius of play!
1 in 7 children and adolescents aged 4 to 17 have recently experienced a mental health disorder in Australia.
These numbers are very concerning, I noticed a huge spike in cases during COVID from 2020 -2022. The number of children, families and our own educators were struggling. Our community have been reaching out for support, what’s more concerning are the ones that are not reaching out asking for help.
It was during this time that we engaged the help of others to organise a fundraiser for mental health, we engaged the help of the CWA who do wonderful things for the community.
Part of this journey was to start the conversations with children and adults so that they would know that help was available, and that there were people to listen. I took part in a 3-day mental health first aid course to better equip myself with the right tools and correct terminology to be able to better support someone seeking help. I gained valuable information during these sessions.
The wheels were in motion, we were having more conversations around mental health, giving out more information about mental health, sharing links and phone numbers, beyond blue were amazing, their website is full of useful information, information that we were able to share, the wording was easy to comprehend and understand for those that were already struggling. I found the big thing was trying to understand their feelings, pain and their hurt.
Loosing their jobs, not being able to pay their mortgages, not being able to put food on the table, not being able to buy medication or pay for the general bills, electricity bills, fuel, rent
All of these events added more and more stress onto our families, which then passed down onto the children who were so confused and not understanding what was happening around them.
From here we started fundraising to help raise funds, we held many raffles where we were able to raise $2000, this was great but not enough. So we put the call out to the community to see how far we could take this. This is where the real fundraising kicked in, we organised a road trip to help bring awareness to more communities, from here we took our Mental Health awareness on the road, we travelled for 2 weeks up to FNQ, bringing awareness and having conversations with communities along the way. Once we reach the tip of Australia we were able to raise another $20,000, this was such a heart warming experience along with the meaningful conversations that were had, we got to meet so many wonderful people that were eager to support our cause.
As most Australian families continue to navigate the ever-changing requirements for COVID-19, the need for Outside School Hours Care can be more important than ever before. We’re just stepping into our third year of the pandemic and, despite doing everything we can to prepare for the next unprecedented event, some things continue to be out of our control.
So, how can Outside School Hours Care support your child’s development?
Social development
In Australia, every Outside School Hours Care program is created in conjunction with the National Quality Framework and My Time, Our Place, which are both created and supplied by the Department of Education. Educators use these frameworks to guide the educational activities they provide to best develop children’s social skills, preparing them for when they grow older and enter society. Some of these social skills include:
Hybrid work model
The pandemic has certainly challenged how businesses approach the traditional workday. Where the norm was once to be office-bound from Monday to Friday, from 9.00 am until 5.00 pm, we are now experiencing the benefits of greater flexibility and a hybrid work model.
While this has many advantages, it can add stress before and after school as parents juggle virtual meetings and deadlines while their children require care and entertainment.
The benefits of using Outside School Hours Care are exponential, particularly when being a parent itself is a full-time job. Children require a lot of attention especially if they are alone and don’t have others to interact with – except for their parents, of course.
Outside School Hours Care allows parents to confidently know that their child is in a safe, supportive, and fun environment, so they can focus on completing their tasks for work or home uninterrupted.
Life skills
There are plenty of opportunities for children to learn valuable life skills when participating in daily routines and planned or spontaneous activities. Outside School Hours Care provides the opportunity for children to learn about cooking food, cleaning, taking care of the environment, and extending on what’s taught in a traditional classroom setting (physical education, problem-solving, experimentation, hypothesising, and so much more).
FUN!
Finally, and most importantly, Outside School Hours Care is FUN. It gives children the opportunity to extend their time spent with their friends regularly – kind of like a before or after-school play date! It’s also a safe environment for them to explore their creativity, find out what they enjoy, and do it while having a good time with their friends.
We are fortunate to be in a position where we can further support a child’s creative journey by sourcing resources to make this a reality within the Outside School Hours Care space. Whether children wish to explore craft, science, sport, technology, cooking, or music, we will do everything we can to ensure we are giving them the tools they require to succeed.
If this hasn’t convinced you to use Outside School Hours Care to your advantage, we highly recommend you come into one of our services to take a look yourself. We also encourage enrolling your child to prepare for the possibility that you may need us one day. Enrolling is a simple, free process and gives you the option if an emergency were to occur. If you do decide to attend our Outside School Hours Care programs, we look forward to welcoming your family into our community!
Every year KDK raises much needed funds and food hampers, to help support families from our immediate community. Christmas is ment to be a joyous time of year where we celebrate our families and friends around a feist. Most families are not able to share in this joy, due to the stresses of live, financial, the expectation of the season, family and other commitments, grief, isolation and so much more.
To help ease that burden, Karen from KDK organises food hampers, gift vouchers, and gifts for the children. All of this is done through fundraising throughout the year. Karen has been running this event and support for families for the past 10 years, making a difference and lightening the burden for many families each year.
Cupcake Day is the RSPCA’s sweetest annual fundraising drive, where we bake for a cause, to raise money for the thousands of animals in care. The RSPCA relies almost entirely on the generosity.
It’s thanks to Cupcake Day participants like ours that the RSPCA can continue helping animals in communities around Australia.
Cupcake Day isn’t just limited to cupcakes, by the way. We get creative and put our baking skills to the test.
All the money raised at our Cupcake Day event will go towards helping the animals who turn to the RSPCA for help. That means our money does a number of crucial things, like keeping the doors to the shelters and veterinary hospitals open, keeping Inspectorate on the road investigating cruelty, providing emergency veterinary care to injured animals, and allowing the RSPCA to prosecute people who have been cruel to animals.
Our support will also be invested into the community education programs, which work to educate the next generation of animal lovers – helping us move towards a future free from animal cruelty by empowering people with knowledge about proper animal care.
Your Cupcake Day fundraising makes a real and sustained difference on the animals in our care.
Regional Town Runs out of Water.
Such a catastrophic event to happen for any town. Here at KDK we started having conversations with the children about water conservation. We spoke about our water footprint, as most children in suburbia don’t have an understanding of “how much water they use when brushing teeth, having a shower or bath, washing their hair, washing clothes, doing the dishes”
From here we spoke about the Highschool Student that was interviewed on the tv, he spoke about not being able to flush the toilet and only being able to shower once a week on a Sunday, and how he was so thirsty because they just didn’t have any water available, when he turned the tap on nothing came out of the faucet, their dogs and other animals were dying because they didn’t have any water to give them.
From here we asked the children what could we do as a community to help. The children came up with the idea of each family (if they were able) to supply a slab of water each to be donated to the community of Warrick, or they could donate a gold coin donation. What a wonderful idea and gesture for these amazing school aged children to come up with, showing such empathy and support for others.
The children promoted this cause by making posters and banners to display at our service, by having conversations with their families, teachers and friends.
By the end of the week our service with the help of the community were able to donate 2 pallets of water.
