By Five
Wimmera Southern Mallee
Every child succeeds in learning and life.
What’s Happening?
Keep up to date with the latest news and updates from By Five.
Recently Launched
‘Years on End… The Tyranny of Distance’
By Five are thrilled to launch a short documentary on their flagship, award-winning, ‘born and bred’ Paediatric Project.
This place-based initiative is testament to what is possible when local people are empowered to come together to solve local problems, for children and the future of our communities.
Stories of Pregnancy & Birth in the Wimmera Southern Mallee
By Five is proud to release the Wimmera Southern Mallee Local Stories of Pregnancy and Birth – a group of stories we have collected from women across the region.
The full collection can be downloaded here.
Each woman has provided a snapshot into their experiences of having children while living rurally, focusing on antenatal care, birthing, postnatal and Maternal and Child Health care. Each story is unique and every story is important to continue deepening our understanding of the challenges women can face in accessing care in the current system. These stories go beyond the financial strain of travelling for antenatal appointments, to the broader impact on the wider family unit, workplaces, careers and overall pregnancy experience.
We thank the women who have shared their stories and respect those who have preferred not to have theirs published. By Five intend to produce a second collection of stories as we continue to gather these important lived experiences to support our work towards ensuring women can access quality antenatal and postnatal care close to home.
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About Us
The By Five Wimmera Southern Mallee (WSM) Early Years Initiative is a place-based community collaboration with the vision that ‘Every WSM child succeeds in learning and life’.
We are committed to ensuring that every child and family has access to consistent, quality early years services in the quantity required for children to thrive in a supportive community environment.
By Five represents five Local Government Areas, working together to improve outcomes across five developmental domains measured at school entry through the Australian Early Development Census.
Our Work
We are working with service providers, communities and families of the WSM to enable the following priorities;
Equitable access to early years services.
High quality care for all families in the WSM.
Creating environments that enable confident and connected families.
Our Region
The WSM covers approximately 20% of Victoria’s landmass, but is home to only around 1% of its population.
This sparsely populated region is home to many small, vibrant communities, and two larger rural centres, Horsham and Stawell.
We are home to almost 3,000 children aged 0-4 years.
The WSM consists of five local government areas;
Hindmarsh Shire
Horsham Rural City
Northern Grampians Shire
West Wimmera Shire
Yarriambiack Shire
