The health and wellbeing of young people on the Bellarine Peninsula will benefit from a new hub at Ocean Grove’s Kingston Estate.
The hub will provide modern facilities to support local families and was built to support the health, development and wellbeing of local children and young people.
It will feature light open spaces including indoor and outdoor therapy spaces and new sensory equipment.
Services operating from the new Bellarine Community Health (BCH) hub include children’s speech pathology, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, and children’s mental health services including play therapy with some youth services to also be offered from the site.
“This new hub will provide a streamlined care pathway for families on the Bellarine and our team are excited to begin providing services from a purpose-built facility with children, young people and families at the heart of its design,” BCH executive director of child, youth and families Liz Womersley said.
“We are exploring what opportunities there might be to have other child, youth and family related services co-locate at the hub because we want this venue to be able to support families as much as possible.”
The project has been designed in two stages, but funding has only been secured for stage one, which is now complete. BCH is actively seeking funding, including grants, for construction of stage two which will further enhance the range of services which can be offered from the hub. The official opening of the hub is expected to be in March.
Funding for stage one of the project was provided through the Commonwealth
Department of Health and Aged Care, and the Anthony Costa Foundation, with the land in Kingston Estate Ocean Grove donated by the Corless Family Trust.
The Child, Youth and Family Hub was designed by Four18 Architecture and built by Loaram Constructions.