Wellspring Early Intervention
Wellspring aims to provide early intervention services that support developmental growth and reducing risks that children and families may otherwise be exposed to when facing adversity.
Two-Generational Approach
In 2023-24, Wellspring’s two-generational approach to early intervention — which provides integrated, wrap-around support and community connection — has been critical to enabling sustainable positive outcomes for children and families in the Brisbane region.
Evidence-based Practice
Micah Projects’ Wellspring and YMYW programs have been under review to ensure ongoing contribution to systems change and the long-term sustainability of the program.
This review is in line with the Micah Projects’ First 2000 Days approach and Queensland Government’s Putting Queensland Children First plan, Women and Girls’ Health Strategy and Young Queenslanders Strategy.
This review looks at:
Access
Improving access to health services (particularly mental health)
Parent Experiences
Child safety experiences of Young Parents
Working with Fathers
Collaboration
Working within a broadened cross-sectional coalition of Young Parent services
Co-location
Access to co-located specialist Allied Health practitioners, like Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy
Government
Exploring further potential opportunities for partnerships with Queensland Government
YMYW Caboolture and Redcliffe
In January 2024, Micah Projects opened a third YMYW Wellspring Hub, bringing additional family support and advocacy to Redcliffe.
The hub uses the Parents as Teachers model to support positive parenting relationships and increase parents’ knowledge of early childhood development, helping reduce risks and build parents’ capacity to care for and protect their families.
Caboolture Dads' Group
In addition to individual support of young men linked with YMYW’s participants, a dads’ group at Caboolture YMYW was established, providing fathers a space to participate in activities that build attachment and foster an understanding of child development.
Key figures
14 young fathers
pursued goals and gained skills through targeted support from a young fathers’ worker at Caboolture
Early Childhood Educator
Adding an early childhood educator to the YMYW Caboolture and Redcliffe multi-disciplinary teams has increased the impact of our two-generational approach. The educator works with parents, a Child Health Nurse and family support and advocacy workers to identify and address developmental concerns. Kelly, Wellspring’s early childhood educator takes part in group time three days per week across both sites bringing her skills to the platform with great success in fostering involvement of the young mums.
Key figures
50 children
received individualised early childhood development intervention by an early childhood educator at Redcliffe and Caboolture
55 young parents
learnt to support their children’s development through engagement with an early childhood educator at Redcliffe and Caboolture
Community and Sector Collaboration
Wellspring has collaborated with Youth Matters, Local Level Alliance, and Moreton Bay Child and Family Network. In addition, several services have visited the Redcliffe Centre such as Salvation Army, Bioc, Chameleon, Bioc and housing, with strong referral numbers to the program, allowing families to seek assistance in a supportive environment.
Child Health Nurse
Wellspring currently liaises with Child health services to secure a Child Health nurse who will be available to families three days per week. This will allow for health concerns to be discussed, ASQ’s completed and discussions regarding referrals out to take place in an informed manner.
Self-Advocacy
Wellspring aims to assist with developing self-advocacy confidence and increasing health literacy. Through doing so the goal is to alleviate the fears young parents express regarding judgement and not being heard.
Dads' Worker
Wellspring’s Dads worker now operates four days at Redcliffe and two days at Caboolture, and is proving invaluable with good engagement from dads already.
Embedded Services
Caboolture has demonstrated the value of having a midwife, child health nurse and early childhood educator embedded in the group space to encourage health literacy, early childhood learning and community service connections
YMYW Brisbane
Through Young Mothers for Young Women, Micah Projects continues to advocate for early intervention with vulnerable families, including families led by young people.
Key figures
26 young mothers
experienced personal, career and enterprise development through participation in group programs and individual support in Brisbane
Peer Workers
The development of peer workers within Wellspring adds the valuable perspective of lived experience to our teams. This also helps to truly hear and understand people's needs and enables us to better design and deliver programs to meet the needs of this cohort.
Building Readiness
Building connection/SE/YMYW advocating for themselves/ builds on both professional and personal development (Skill development, confidence and financial independence) Both Be Your Best and Collective of Creatives are building readiness in the young mums cohort
Being Your Best
Being Your Best focuses on self-development, empowerment and life skills. For young women to explore their identity and life choices outside their role as a parent. Building both professional and personal skills in readiness for return to education or to enter the workplace.
Being Your Best in 2023-24
| # | Impact |
|---|---|
| 22 | currently working |
| 55 | involved in study |
| 26 | women improved their skills and confidence working towards financial independence |
| 70+ | sessions were held offering these opportunities |
On average participants feelings about planning for the future increased from 4/10 to 7.2/10
Collective of Creatives
YMYW Brisbane offered self-development and small business opportunities for young women through tailored group programs. A developmental approach was taken and one year on, all graduates from the Collective of Creatives that commenced in July 2023 are actively engaged in work, training and/or self-employment. Participants have continued their success outside the group with shop fronts we’ve had at conferences and organisational days.
Key figures
100% of parents surveyed
said they experienced significant change in their confidence, knowledge and connections through engagement with YMYW
Working with Hand Heart Pocket
Hand Heart Pocket (HHP) funding has enabled YMYW to extend multi-disciplinary service offerings based on needs identified by participants. The project is funded for three years with a potential two-year extension.
HHP’s support has added the following elements to our work:
- Systems advocacy to work towards systems change and long-term sustainability of the program
- 2-generational approach
- YMYW Caboolture:
- Part-time Young Fathers Support and Advocacy Worker
- Part-time Early Childhood Educator
- YMYW Brisbane: delivery of developmental employment-focused activities for young mothers
- Improved focus on outcomes measurement in collaboration with HHP’s outcomes measurement project.
ACWA conference
Spoke and presented a panel session at the national the Australian Community Workers Association (ACWA) conference in Sydney.
Parent Advocacy Training
Parent Advocacy Training saw 14 commence and 10 parents graduating after a 13-week training session. Parents learned about their rights and how to use their voice to advocate for themselves and others. The program was co-designed and co-facilitated by parents with lived experience of the child protection system.
Evaluating Parent Advocacy Training
The independent evaluation found parents reported significant increases in confidence and skills, expressed a new sense of empowerment. The largest shift in confidence was ‘understanding systems advocacy and when it’s needed’ and ‘understanding the child protection system and how laws and policies affect how things happen’.
“I feel more confident in standing up for myself and others.”
“I will use information to set up my next part of my journey”
Global Day of Parents
Cardiff University Social Work Professor Jonathan Scourfield was our main guest speaker. He discussed his research on how we might re-think and re-define the budgets and ‘systems’ that impact families and? How might we resource parents and families in ways that work today?
Consultation and submission for child protection litigation review
FIN consulted with approx. 50 parents and to ensure parents’ unique views, experiences and suggestions were included in the in early 2024, Queensland Government’s established thereview of the Child Litigation Project to "deliver permanent child protection litigation model."
Micah Projects' Young Mothers for Young Women Service
