A community meeting in Gunnedah tonight will focus on children and learning in rural and remote NSW.
The meeting, held by Royal Far West, will look at ways to slash the childhood vulnerability rate in half.
One in five children in Gunnedah is developmentally vulnerable and not ready to start school at the age of five, according to the 2015 Australian early development Census data.
Watch the event live here:
Royal Far West, a NSW-based country children's charity, has teamed up with Fairfax Media and Charles Sturt University to bring together the health, education and government industries to discuss with parents how the Gunnedah community can tackle vulnerability.
The panel members of the forum are Federal Member for Parkes Mark Coulton; Every Gunnedah Child Caroline Leys; Gunnedah deputy mayor Gae Swain; Gunnedah District Health Service acting HSM Symone Fuller; St Francis Xavier School’s Julie VanDorst; P.R.A.M.S chairperson Kim Street; Royal Far West ceo Lindsay Cane and Fairfax Media’s Brad Cooper, who will MC the event.
Want to know what people are saying in the Twitterverse from the forum, follow the feed here:
Earlier in the year, some alarming statistics were brought to light by “The Invisible Children”, a report on the state of children’s health and development in rural and remote Australia by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute’s Centre for Community Child Health on behalf of Royal Far West.
It found children in country Australia were five times more likely to suffer developmental problems when compared to their city counterparts, while one in three kids in rural areas was unable to access the health services they needed.
It also found the gap between city and children’s health and development outcomes was widening.
Related reading
