Children deserve a great start, whether it’s being ready for day one at school, learning to read, discovering new sports or getting assistance through our Chances program.
Doug, the reading bug
Doug the Reading Bug is the mascot of the Born to Read project which encourages parents to read to children from birth. He runs Children’s Story Time at libraries and schools across the shire: often as pyjama parties!
The early years brain research shows that a person’s learning pathways are established in the brain by the age of three. The power of reading to children should never be underestimated. Reading and sharing stories with young children is vitally important in helping children develop life long skills for learning.
Doug's message is simple 10 minutes a day, talk, sing, play - share a book today.
If you’d like Doug to visit your school, group or event, including Children’s Story Time, contact us on 4992 1133.
Chances
The Chances program offers children aged 3 years to 18 years in the Dungog Shire financial assistance to be involved in a sport, a dance activity or learn a musical instrument of their choice.
How can we get assistance?
Please contact us to arrange for an appointment. An interview will be conducted and your child’s needs and interests will be discussed. We'll give you an application form, with terms and conditions. Each case will be confidentially assessed and considered.
You can donate to Chances
Please consider donating to this great program. Financial donations can be made here. Please use Chances in the reference.
Sporting or musical items can be donated in one of the many Chances Buckets around the district.
Books for Babies
Books for Babies is about investing in our children’s future through growing readers. A love of reading is a gift, but it also empowers children with the skills and abilities they need for a life of learning. Through Books for Babies we are giving the gift of a book to every baby born in the Dungog Shire.
Books for Babies is a new initiative of Dungog Shire Community Centre and aims to give every baby born in the Dungog Shire area a book pack to nurture and encourage a love of reading from birth. Each pack will include a beautiful book, book mark, library book bag and information on the importance of reading to children from birth and tips and hints on how to make reading easy and fun with babies.
Reading to babies is a beautiful way to connect with your baby, share quiet time with each other and share stories of your childhood. It also encourages pre-literacy and social skills for a flying start to life, develops a child’s communication skills, supports their wellbeing and helps build strong and loving relationships between parent and baby.
Sharing stories and reading to babies helps set children up for a life time of loving to read, of building skills that will help them in their lifelong learning, but also help children explore the wonder, joy relaxation and love of reading and sharing stories.
As well as giving Books for Babies book packs the program will also hold a number of free, fun, family books and reading activities across the Dungog Shire in the coming months. These activities will focus on encouraging and supporting families to read with their babies and young children, to connect with their local libraries – a great resource for book lovers, as well as support families to build social and support networks for them and their babies.
Books for Babies: through giving a book to every baby born in our community we hope to nurture and share a lifelong love of reading.
Other Community support information
Wesley Mission, Rural Family Worker
Kaleidoscope
Dungog Library Storytime
Samaritans Early Intervention Program
Supporting kids 0 to 8 with autism, developmental delays or disabilities.
Daniel Morcombe Foundation 'Help Me' App
A great way to not only help keep kids safe, but assist people of all ages, from 7 to 97, covering all kinds of personal emergency situations.
The 'Help Me' button sounds a warning and allows you to can send off an SMS text to two (2) nominated 'safety' numbers, as part of your Trusted Safety Network. Included in the text are GPS coordinates from where the text was sent, so the sender can be located or a last known place of contact is indicated.