Children attending child care and students in bushfire-declared communities will receive additional mental health support.
\nStudents from bushfire-declared communities will also receive special consideration to access scholarships for higher education.
\nMinister for Education Dan Tehan said child care centres, preschools, schools and universities are important community touchpoints that are helping families and children get back on their feet after the bushfires.
\n\u201cOur Government is supporting child care centres, preschools, schools and universities in their important work, which is why I convened a meeting of education sector representatives this week,\u201d Mr Tehan said.
\n\u201cThe message from that meeting was loud and clear: we need to focus on our young people\u2019s mental health because these bushfires will impact communities long after the flames are extinguished.
\n\u201cOur Government will provide an additional $8 million for mental health support through Beyond Blue to fund an extra 25 Beyond Blue liaison officers and supporting clinicians to work with local schools and early childhood services in bushfire-affected communities.
\n\u201cWe are offering extra funding for school chaplains which will be available to state and territory governments on request.
\n\u201cOur Government will also re-prioritise funding within the Community Child Care Fund for bushfire-affected areas. This funding could help pay for temporary premises, replacement of damaged playground equipment, or wages for affected staff.\u201d
\nMr Tehan said the families of more than 90,000 children in bushfire-declared local government areas (LGAs) that might incur a Child Care Subsidy activity test debt for the 2019-20 financial year, would be exempt. This is similar to the exemption provided to Child Care Subsidy recipients in drought and flood-affected LGAs last year.
\n\u201cFamilies can still claim the Child Care Subsidy even if their work, study or volunteering hours have been impacted by the bushfires.
\n\u201cWhen it comes to rebuilding schools, funding is available through the jointly funded Commonwealth-State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangement for the restoration of essential public assets, including public schools.
\n\u201cOur Government is also providing an additional $400 (a total of $800) for each child that has qualified for the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment which will help families with education expenses.
\n\u201cTo help students from bushfire-affected communities to attend university we will give special consideration to their circumstances if they apply for one of more than 1,000 scholarships through the $58.1 million Rural and Regional Enterprise Scholarships program. Given the immediate needs of the situation, these scholarships have been brought forward and will open from Monday.
\n\u201cFollowing our meeting this week with representatives from the education sector, our Government will also work with the sector to implement their suggestions about how to improve bushfire management and recovery.\u201d
\nThis includes:<\/p>\n
Member for Lyne Dr David Gillespie said child care and school were critical considerations for families affected by bushfires. Children attending child care and students in bushfire-declared communities will receive additional mental health support. Students from bushfire-declared communities will also receive special consideration to access scholarships for higher education. Minister for Education Dan Tehan said child care centres, preschools, schools and universities are important community touchpoints that are helping families and children get back … Continue reading “Supporting families affected by bushfires”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4884\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u201cIn my electorate we are already seeing the community beginning to get back on its feet, with rebuilding work under way,\u201d Dr Gillespie said.
\n\u201cWe also need to focus on the mental wellbeing of our communities, especially our youngest members.
\n\u201cEducation is so important and our Government\u2019s program will help ensure we mitigate the impact of these bushfires on our children and their education.\u201d
\nFor more information visit\u00a0www.education.gov.au\/support-bushfire-affected-communities<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"