Home / Information / Cherbourg Success Stories / Young Mother’s Group

Young Mother’s Group – Gundoo Child Care Centre

Aim

The Young Mother’s Group aims to foster and enrich very young children’s social and early language development through everyday mother-child interactions. It assists young mothers develop supportive child-rearing networks and positive parenting practices.

Background

The Gundoo Child Care Centre provides full time day care services to the Cherbourg community. There are currently 60 children enrolled in the Early Childhood group and 120 in Before and After School Care at the centre. There are a number of new young mothers (young people under the age of 18) who leave their babies in the centre on a regular basis. Read more

Why it Works

The program teaches young mothers the importance of communicating with their babies and assists them to enhance their mothering skills. Much of the success of the Cherbourg program was because it was run in the local community by local women. The mothers felt supported and enjoyed the opportunity to talk and share with other new mothers like them. The bonding between mothers and their babies improved and the mothers are now more aware of the importance of what they are doing in their daily interactions with their babies.

Keys to keeping this initiative alive

Planning is already underway for implementing the program again in partnership with Community Health. This partnership will be a critical element in the continuation of the program. Read more

Advice to others who might want to try this in their communities

Support for community workers to attend the Hanen Program training at Royal Women’s Hospital ensures that there are trained staff in the community, able to partner with other services or agencies to run the program for young mothers. This training ensures that community people have the skills to work with the young mothers and they are more likely to still be there despite personnel changes in the agencies over time.

Support to get the young mothers to the program is also essential. This requires talking to them about the program, what it is about and how important the role of a mother is in the baby’s development. This may require transporting young mothers and their babies to and from the training venue.

Advertising the program in the community also helps the whole community to understand what is being offered and supports the young mothers’ involvement.

Print this page