Children with a disability and their parents are among the beneficiaries of this year’s Hobsons Bay Community Fund.
Altona North-based Yooralla West Children’s Services has received $5000 for a parent training program to help mums and dads communicate with their children.
Manager Judith Jones said the money would be used to teach eight families the Hanen program for children with language delays, dubbed It takes two to talk.
“Trained speech pathologists will be running the program … we just use the funding to be able to have the staff to run the program,” she said.
Ruth Culph, who completed the program last year after being on the waiting list for a year, said it helped her interact with her son, Hamish, who has Down syndrome.
She said the program helped in practical ways, such as finding out what Hamish wanted to eat at meal times.
“When the kids aren’t speaking, it’s really easy to just give them food and not ask what they want or ask if they’re full, because they can’t tell you.
“We were given lots of help, so you might offer choices and see if the kid will indicate what he wants to eat rather than just presuming.”
Similarly, Ms Culph said she might make a twinkle action with her fingers to see if Hamish responds. If he gets excited and claps, it means he wants her to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
Fund chairman Hayden Raysmith said two organisations helping children with learning difficulties were among this year’s 11 grant recipients.
“Yooralla West Children’s Services will focus on helping parents develop skills to help their pre-school children not be left behind, while the Altona Primary School Parents Association will provide a 10-week drama program for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder,” he said.
In its largest funding pool yet, the community fund is allocating $30,678 in grants to 11 causes, including women’s refuges, early-learning programs for children with a disability or learning difficulty, equipment for the Men’s Shed program, entertainment for residents in aged-care facilities and support for people with anxiety disorders.
Now in its ninth year, the fund has provided more than $120,000 in grants to 55 community groups.
The Hobsons Bay Community Fund grants night will be hosted this year at the Kooringal Golf Club, which has joined Signcraft, Qenos, ComptonGreen, UMS and Star Weekly as corporate supporters.
The event is on November 12, 5-7pm.
