Programs and Resources

Community Information Officers (CIOs) support schools in communicating and strengthening links with their parents and community members from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. CIOs are not community specific or limited to working with any one cultural or linguistic group but work with a diverse range of communities.

CIOs are located in regions as part of the statewide network of multicultural education support services. Some CIOs speak languages other than English and many have close links with and understandings of particular ethnic communities.

Each year regions support the implementation of parent and community participation projects in nominated schools. These initiatives focus on encouraging parent participation and informing parents about school programs and the role that they can play in supporting their children in their learning.

The Youth Partnership with Pacific Communities is a whole of government initiative aimed at:

• promoting the well being of young people from Pacific communities
• increasing parent support and education to help parents prevent risk taking behaviour by children and young people
• providing children and young people with better learning opportunities and recreational activities for long term personal development.

Pacific communities in NSW include those from the Cook Islands, Fiji, New Zealand, Niue, Samoa, Tonga, and other nations of the Pacific, each with distinctive indigenous cultures, languages and histories.

Under the Partnership five main initiatives are being implemented:

• Homework support
• Student mentoring
• Parent/school partnerships
• Student leadership
• Teaching and learning.

The Partnership involves schools in the three regions which have significant enrolments of students from Pacific communities - Sydney, South Western Sydney and Western Sydney regions. Each region has designed particular programs within each initiative and selected schools to participate for 2005 and 2006. Participating schools receive funding to implement the programs and are required to report on program expenditure and outcomes achieved.

The Partnership is supported by the NSW Council for Pacific Communities which includes representatives of the different Pacific communities in NSW.