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Gratitude and Growth, End of Year Closures and Looking to 2025

by | Dec 11, 2024 | Parenting

Season's Greetings from Tweddle

A message from the CEO

This year has been one of remarkable growth, not only for Tweddle but for the Victorian Early Parenting sector. We are grateful for the Labor Government’s $143m EPC investment which will improve access to families with babies and toddlers needing the support of these specialist services.

We not only opened an additional Tweddle EPC at Wyndham—one of Victoria’s fastest-growing areas—but we also unveiled a newly redeveloped and renovated Footscray EPC.

As the year draws to a close, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to our Board, staff, volunteers, and the many “alumni” who contribute to Tweddle, whether through advocacy for our work or more active roles.

Our team often says, “Once you leave Tweddle, you really never leave”—it’s a “mind and hearts” kind of place, and it’s because there is so much passion for the work that we do and the difference we can make in a child and family’s connectedness and well-being trajectory.

I’m sincerely grateful on behalf of all the families we serve for the support you provide as staff, as Board members, as volunteers, and as supportive community members.

Tweddle is all about service. We feel humbled and privileged to be able to do the work that we do and so we thank all of those families who have entrusted us with their care and allowing us into their lives.

As we look towards 2025 fast closing in, we are excited about the opportunities ahead and doing our very best to ensure babies are safe, secure, loved, nurtured and celebrated in all their forms of wonderfulness, and that families’ lives are better such that communities thrive.

A joyous festive season to you all who celebrate and may you all have a wonderful 2025.

Liz Murdoch

Tweddle’s Annual Report

Tweddle’s Annual Report released this week, outlines many achievements of the 23/24 year – made all the more remarkable by the additional challenges of a disrupted work environment due to the final stages of redevelopment in Footscray.

We are immensely grateful for the support of the Department of Health, and the Department of Families, Fairness, and Housing. Their consistent support has enabled us to expand our services this year and provide hundreds of families facing challenges with a stronger start to life.

We are thankful to all the donors listed in the Report who gave their time, donations of goods for babies and families, and specific support for us to do that bit extra– research, purchase equipment, and deliver improvement projects focused on enhancing the experience of care for clients, and many more.

You can view Tweddle’s Annual Report here. 

Tweddle’s Strategic Services Plan 2030

This year we also developed a comprehensive Strategic Services Plan which not only lays out projections regarding what our future challenges might be in response to community size and profile but considers important demographical context for the changing needs of young families in our region.

With the assistance of Impact Co, the plan was informed by extensive stakeholder input and available data analytics which guides us on our areas of focus to strengthen and sustain ourselves over the next 5 years.

To continue to do what we do best, we know we must consistently adapt to changing needs in order to navigate the inevitable changes that lie ahead. Our 2025-2030 Strategic Plan (in development) will refresh our “reason for being”, aspirations and what it is that we will need and enable us to achieve our purpose. This plan will be our overarching “North Star” to guide our work in support of our goals.

You can view Tweddle’s Strategic Services Plan 2030 here. 

Thanking Partners and Stakeholders

We have been immensely excited about the opportunity to work more closely with QEC – their staff and Board – to realise the value of collaborative work and that we can make more impact when we do things together. We are excited to see where this takes us.

Our deep appreciation goes out to our sector and community partners, including Cohealth, Meli, Deakin University, Monash University, RMIT, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Aboriginal Services Network of the West, Western VACCA, the City of Brimbank and the Wyndham City Council. This list is certainly not exhaustive!

A special thank you to Member for Footscray Katie Hall for her tireless advocacy for families in the West.

This year we were thrilled to welcome Premier Jacinta Allan to our Footscray site for a visit. The Premier and Ms Hall were generous with praise and gratitude for the work done here, impressed with the new and improved accommodation and delighted to meet a range of clients and their babies that day enjoying very cute cuddles and chatting with parents and staff.

Summer Closures and Support Services

Tweddle will be closed over the festive period from Thursday 19th December and reopen on Monday, January 6th, 2025

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