...a focus on early childhood
The Peter Williams Family Education Centre
Family Focus
Parenting is a challenge to all of us who have children. Some of us were lucky to have experienced a happy and secure childhood, and some of us were not so lucky. Some of us were separated from our parents when we were young. Some of us were abused. And some of us grew up with parents who were preoccupied with their won needs and we didn’t really feel wanted and loved by them.
Some of us find that being parents to our own children brings more pain than pleasure. We often find ourselves doing the very things our parents did that made us so unhappy. But however we are parenting, we are doing the best we can. We want our children to feel safe and loved, just as we wanted to feel safe and loved as children.
The Peter Williams Family Education Centre aims to build on the family’s efforts to provide for the needs of their children.
The group work program recognises that parents are people as well as parents, and participating in the life of the Centre can mean friendship, a sense of belonging, an experience of contributing in group discussions and activities, and an opportunity for personal and family growth.
Group members grow in confidence, learn skills, have fun, share their joys and pains, and have the opportunity to change or build on the ways they parent and care for their children.
The program at the Peter Williams Family Education Centre provides a stepping stone to the activities and support services already operating in the neighbourhoods of the parents who attend, and an experience of social and intellectual stimulation for the children.
Families are Precious
At the Peter Williams Family Education Centre we help families to help themselves. For a time, they become part of the larger family at the Centre, and experience the pleasure of giving and taking and growing. Some families stay for a short time and others for longer. They know when they are ready to move on. The Peter Williams Education Centre was developed because Family Focus believes that the family experience in the child’s life, and that families can change. The importance of quality care and services provided in the early years of childhood, especially for children who are in “at risk” situation, will be the focus of a new Trust, established in conjunction with Family Focus.
The Peter Rhys Williams Trust has been established by Dr. Alan & Dorothy Williams of Fairhaven, in memory of their son Peter, who was tragically killed in a hiking accident in 1968, at the age of sixteen.
Peter was born in 1952, and from an early age, his determination and his willingness to ‘have a go’, were qualities obvious to family and teachers. His school friends remember him as a person of cheerfulness, friendliness, and integrity, who planned whatever he did with meticulous detail. In 1961, a severe illness cause Peter to be admitted to the Children’s Hospital, where he remained in a coma for nearly 15 months. His recovery from the coma was put down to the high quality of medical and nursing care, the regular visits of his family and to his won resilient character.
Following his illness he returned to school and quickly made up for all the work missed. He was a keen student and very popular with teachers and students alike. After his death his Headmaster remarked: “In his all too short life, Peter Williams has shown there is nothing which is impossible, even to one who has suffered a severe setback, if he possesses the Christian values which are the basis of all the best lives, and if he never gives up.”
Dr Williams has always been a strong advocate for a range of quality services for young children throughout the State. He was President of the Paediatrics Society from 1971-72. He was President of Children’s Welfare Association of Victoria from 1975-1977 and President of the Children’s Bureau of Australia from 1979-80. His wife, Dorothy, has also had a long standing and deep concern for preschool children, and the services which meet their needs and support their families. Mrs Williams has worked in kindergartens for many years, as well as at the Allambie Reception Centre. She has also taught Child Care Studies at the Prahran College of TA TAFE. In recent times, she has travelled up from Fairhaven to do voluntary work at the Children’s Hospital.
Alan & Dorothy have been a formidable team in their advocacy of the importance of quality programs for pre-school children and their families.
We believe that the focus on the importance of early childhood development in the Centre mirrors the Williams family’s special interests, and that Peter’s special characteristics of determination, cheerfulness and ‘having a go’ will be very relevant to the work we will be undertaking.