Children aged between 0 and 3 years and their families living in Sutherland Shire who have been recognized as needing extra support.Community minded residents of the Shire who gain satisfaction from volunteering their time and sharing their experience to help families in need.The local Sutherland Shire community benefits as caring, trust, reciprocity and participation are built.

Our Primary Activities:

We work with isolated new mothers to develop mothercraft skills, providing a role model, providing guidance, information and strategies if requested.
We provide an extra set of hands for new mothers who have premature babies, who have had multiple births, or who have young children to care for.
We operate a food pantry to assist disadvantaged families struggling with financial difficulties.
Families who will benefit:
Mothers who are isolated geographically or socially
Multiple birth families
Teenage parents
Single parent families
Mothers with limited parenting skills
Older experienced mothers struggling with sleep deprivation
Premature babies
New arrivals to our area (from other regions or states)
Migrants or refugees
Mothers with Postnatal depression
Child or family member with an illness or disability
Mothers lacking family support
Mothers struggling to adjust to motherhood
Families where there are frequent pregnancies
Families where husbands/partners are serving in the Defence Forces
Socially and economically disadvantaged families
Families of all income levels are eligible for our service

Volunteers support mothers by:
Visiting for a few hours once per week, lending an extra hand to help with a baby or child, being a good listener, helping with shopping or appointments, providing company, assisting with information on parenting or other community supports.An important part of the work of the volunteers and coordinators is building resilience. They help mothers by being an external support and resource. Volunteers may model new parenting skills, and build on personal and interpersonal strengths. Building resilience allows a person, group or community to prevent, minimize or overcome the damaging effects of adversity. Building resilience is effective, can have life long benefits, can be inexpensive or nil cost. Resilience is linked with success in life and prevention of substance use problems, mental disorder and violence. (Hillin, A. and McAlpine, R. 2006)