A charity has reached an agreement with Melton council to use a vacant kindergarten in Caroline Springs as a base to provide more support services to vulnerable families.
The Caroline Chisholm Society last week struck a deal with the council for a peppercorn lease of the former Wirrigirri Kindergarten in Darebin Place to run parenting groups and other support services for expectant mothers, single parents and the parents of young children.
Society chief executive Helen Cooney said the deal had been months in the making and followed the charity’s purchase last year of Delphin’s former display home next door for use as a base.
The kindergarten has been vacant since February.
“The kindergarten needed to move sites and we knew that the space was there to support families … this is such a wonderful space for us,” Ms Cooney said.
In March last year, Melton council announced plans to sell the kindergarten site – housing a portable building it bought in 2002 – following completion of the Burnside Children’s and Community Centre, which opened earlier this year.
Ms Cooney said the new base would allow staff to focus their attention on providing kindergarten teachers with tools to identity vulnerable children so they could be referred to support services earlier.
“We believe this project will assist kinder teachers with options for help and will assist our team in getting referrals earlier so we can prevent issues with, for example, child protection.”
