Cullunghutti Aboriginal Early Years Service

Tara Leslie is the CEO at Cullunghutti Aboriginal Early Years Service. She’s a proud Aboriginal woman, descendant of the Gamillaray and Yuin Nations.

She’s passionate about ensuring children get access to the right kind of education and care. That’s why she’s worked for over a decade in the Aboriginal services sector in health, early childhood and governance.

Tara runs Cullunghutti, an Aboriginal Early Years service in Nowra, NSW. Cullunghutti has partnered with SVA and SNAICC – the National Voice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children, and Parkville Institute to build the evidence for a new approach to support children and families living with significant stress and disadvantage.

It’s called wrap-around support and it makes services easier to access by bringing them together in one place. At a recent SVA event, Tara talked us through what wrap-around support looks like and the positive change it creates in her community.

Early childhood is a unique window for change

‘Our service is in East Nowra, and it’s one of the most disadvantaged communities in Australia. Our families coming in, they have complex, intergenerational trauma.’

‘It’s hard to provide education and care to all our families, as we’re the only approved Aboriginal childcare service in our community so we have 160 children on our waitlist. And we really want to support the next generation of children coming through.’

‘We know that the first five years of a child’s life and brain development is the most important time. When people talk about “bridging gaps” or “breaking the cycle” – this is where it all begins. That’s why early childhood services are so important, it’s about shaping our children.’

Overcoming barriers by simplifying services

‘At Cullunghutti, we’re a one-stop-shop for our families to come in, feel safe, feel trusted and know that we walk alongside them.’

‘So when they come to us and share their story, they know that they can trust us and we can provide a safe space for our children to get the access to education, health and all of the wrap-around services they need.’

‘At our centre, in addition to early childhood education, we also provide speech counselling, paediatricians, GPs, infant mental health, immunisations – everything is under one roof. It helps remove barriers like access and transport for these families.’

Walking alongside families creates better results

‘Let me share with you an example of how that transforms children’s lives.’

‘We had a little boy come though our centre and our educators identified that he had some developmental delays. We referred him to our Early Intervention Officer who supports the family and walks alongside them in developmental milestones. For this little boy, that was going through the process of going to the GP, getting a referral to a paediatrician and, in this case, getting a diagnosis of autism.’

‘Our Early Intervention Officer then works with the family, in this case a single mum, to unpack what this diagnosis meant for them. “My child has extra needs, what do I do about that?” We supported her to get access to the right services. This little boy had regular speech and occupational therapy appointments through our service.’

‘Happily for this family, this little boy went through our early learning and on to primary school where he became school captain in year 6. That’s the type of transformation that’s possible when families get the right kind of support.’