Recently, a Royal Far West (RFW) Schools and Early Years Services multidisciplinary team, including Hayden (Clinical Psychologist), Lisa (Occupational Therapist), Jess (Speech Pathologist), and Danni (Partnerships), made significant strides in strengthening our Victorian presence. Our team visited both Rainbow P-12 College and Jeparit Primary School, delivering a variety of services, workshops, and assessments.

Rainbow P-12 College

At Rainbow P-12 College, where we’ve been providing consistent telecare services since 2023, the team provided observations, therapy sessions, assessments, and a staff wellbeing workshop. We also delivered a “Friendships and Feelings” workshop for grades 4-6, visited the kindergarten, and connected with the By 5 Wimmera team. This was RFW’s second in-community visit to Rainbow P-12 College this year and the fourth visit since 2023

Jeparit Primary School

Jeparit Primary School, which recently started working with RFW, was another highlight of our visit. We engaged with staff, students, and parents, providing vital information about RFW’s services. It was a great opportunity to establish a strong foundation for future collaboration. Fun fact: Jeparit is not only the birthplace of Sir Robert Menzies (see photo below), who opened the RFW Polio Hospital in 1964, but it also shaped his early years in a small, tight-knit community. He said:

“When I was a very small boy in a very primitive section of-the bush in Victoria there was a doctor here, another doctor 25 miles away, but what happened to little children who had some physical defect, some kind of complaint? Without diagnosis, I wouldn’t know. When you think that in this very place, hundreds and now thousands of children have been received and treated and given a vision of a new life, when you think of that, this wouldn’t have happened If we, hadn’t had people with Imagination….Every night we ought to thank heaven we have been able to produce in this country, people, of unselfishness, of skill, of devotion, of Imagination, who have enabled these great things to be done.”

We’re excited to build on this legacy as we support the local school and community.

Royal Far West is committed to supporting regional Victorian schools and strengthening our connections in these communities.