Living and thriving in Melbourne

Melbourne has really well developed social support services. While neighbors just worry about themselves and don's really talk to each other the social support infrastructure is excellent. We have had Maternal and child Health Nurse visits on weekly basis, social workers call and drop in, we drop by doctors which is just around the corner and if worts comes to worst we can access residential program for mothers with babies. And the best thing is that this is all for free.

The one issue is that there is severe lack of kindergarten places. Melbourne university has waiting list with 800 parents waiting for over 2 years for a place. Local kindy is no better as there are only several places available for each age group. So lets hope that this news that the Government is promoting actually filters down to us:

Kinder teachers returned to work with new pay deal

News bulletin: 16 February 2010

More than 5000 kindergarten teachers across Victoria started the kinder year with better pay and conditions thanks to several new enterprise agreements that started this year.

http://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/news/newsalerts/2010/paydeal.htm