The Mornington Peninsula, about an hour’s drive south from Melbourne, boasts a vibrant and diverse community. Families living in the Western Port and Southern Peninsula communities are connected to the place, with many having been there for generations. Not all families, however, have appropriate access to the services and supports they need to thrive.
Stephanie Exton, CEO of the Mornington Peninsula Foundation (MPF), says the communities of Western Port and Southern Peninsula have high aspirations for their kids. Despite this, literacy levels haven’t met the national standard for generations, which has left parts of the local community experiencing social and financial exclusion.
“Low literacy is a barrier to economic and social wellbeing for many people,” she says.
“From children entering school without the foundational oral language, to people accessing housing support services needing assistance in navigating the necessary forms.”
Through its investment in community-led change, MPF is helping uplift children’s literacy levels, and helping create a ‘new normal’ for children, young people and families.
“The point of learning to read is not to read,” says Stephanie. “The point of learning to read is to have options.”
MPF was established in 2017 to respond to needs articulated by the local community. With direct input from families, young people, educators, community workers, philanthropists, and government, MPF uses local insights to address complex issues in new ways, and since 2018 has been building new systems in education and services according to community-led ideas and trials.
“Existing services work well for most people,” continues Stephanie. “But people with complex challenges, who require additional support, are at risk of falling through the gaps in a fractured system.
“We help stitch together the perforations that exist between schools and services.”
In 2020 MPF began working with Tyabb Railway Station Primary School (TRSPS), one of nine schools supported by MPF. School Principal Emma Slater was unable to implement her vision for the 160-student school while working overtime to manage behavioural concerns and respond to student wellbeing needs.
In response, MPF funds a Wellbeing Coordinator position that works across three schools, including TRSPS, to connect kids and families requiring support to services not designed to meet their needs.
Emma says that when families are in challenging circumstances, it’s not always a priority, or even a possibility, to get their kids to school.
“With compassionate support, we help remove barriers to school attendance so that all our school children have access to learning,” she says.
“When families are in crisis, school becomes home for so many children.”
With more kids more regularly in the classroom and families supported by the Wellbeing Coordinator, Emma can focus on tackling low literacy levels and address the large number of students entering high school unable to read.
With support from MPF the school introduced the Science of Learning and Classroom Mastery, which help provide consistency for students and teachers, through evidence-based teaching and classroom routines. This has meant ongoing professional development and coaching for teachers to ensure the whole of school is aligned.
“Our students now arrive at the classroom ready to learn, and we’re starting to see improved literacy indicators across the student cohort,” says Emma.
“We have high expectations of students and high expectations of teachers, and by expecting more, we’re creating a new normal of achievement at TRSPS.”
The success isn’t isolated to just one school. The cluster of nine schools1 supported by MPF includes seven primary schools, which are connected to two secondary schools, and by sharing professional learning, resources, and a common approach and philosophy across the cluster, together they’re creating cohesive pathways for students, smoothing the transition from primary to secondary school.
“Philanthropy has supported our school to be an exemplar school with numerous staff supporting the other eight schools now on board," continues Emma. "This just wouldn’t be possible without the hard work and dedication of staff working hand in hand with philanthropic organisations.”
Across the cluster more than 400 educators and staff are supported to implement high impact teaching and more than 3,500 children and young people are in schools that are using evidence-based teaching to improve literacy, classroom management and wellbeing.
The additional wellbeing support in schools, is bolstered by support from Western Port Community Support Centre, which provides emergency relief, from food and utility payments to housing and family support for anyone in the community who needs it – including families with kids at TRSPS.
MPF has worked with the Centre for the past five years from making small grants to explore new ways of responding to local challenges, to re-imagining services to overcome systemic barriers to engagement.
“We are helping provide additional support to families across multiple community touchpoints – in primary schools, secondary schools and outside the school gates,” says Stephanie.
“This connected, networked, holistic approach means fewer kids and families are falling through the cracks, and we can knit together services so people can access what they need.”
Western Port Community Support Centre enjoys the flexibility afforded by philanthropic funding. They can provide creative solutions for people at risk of homelessness that are beyond the boundaries of what mainstream services can offer, and in the past four years, more than 1,100 clients have engaged in housing and homelessness support.
Stephanie says the Centre team isn’t bound by having to fit people and their circumstances neatly into boxes.
“If the best thing they can do for someone is top up their rent until they’re eligible for a bigger pension, they can do that. Or they can drive someone to the local Service Victoria office to help them get ID.
“The things that people need aren’t necessarily expensive or complex, but they are life changing.”
As a community foundation, MPF is a conduit for local impact. The Foundation has more than 200 donors contributing to their work, including Paul Ramsay Foundation. Stephanie says it’s the relationships MPF holds, and the trust built over time, that contributes to the change they can make.
“We are part of this community. We hear what people tell us, we understand the challenges, and we can meet expressed needs, which change over time.
“Everyone needs to belong and have a role in the community. This is ours.”
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- MPF education partners: Preschools - Community Kinders Plus: Crib Point, Hastings, Wallaroo, Tyabb, Mornington Park. Primary Schools: Crib Point, Tyabb Railway Station, Wallaroo, Hastings, Eastbourne, Tootgarook, Rosebud. Secondary Schools: Western Port Secondary, Rosebud Secondary.
