1 Growing Lachlan Report TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................................................................................................................... 2 FOREWORD – GROWING LACHLAN ............................................................................................................... 3 SECTION 1 - INTRODUCTION & OVERVIEW OF KEY FINDINGS ................................................................................................ 5 Where is Lachlan Shire? ................................................................................................................................ 5 Why have we prepared this Growing Lachlan report? ................................................................................... 6 How has the report been prepared? ............................................................................................................. 6 What is the focus and structure of this report? ............................................................................................. 7 What are the key observations, insights and priorities identified in this report? ........................................... 8 Where to from here? .................................................................................................................................... 9 SECTION 2 - WHAT DO COMMUNITY MEMBERS SAY ABOUT LACHLAN? ................................................................................... 10 2.1. Who have we talked to? .................................................................................................................. 10 2.2. What have people had to say?......................................................................................................... 11 2.3. What near term priorities have community members identified? ................................................... 16 SECTION 3 - WHAT DOES OTHER DATA TELL US ABOUT OUR COMMUNITY? ............................................................................ 17 3.1. Who lives in our community? .......................................................................................................... 17 3.2. How cohesive and engaged is our community? ............................................................................... 21 3.3. How strong is our economy? ........................................................................................................... 22 3.4. How safe is our community? ........................................................................................................... 26 3.5. How healthy is our community? ...................................................................................................... 29 3.6. What do the families in our community look like? ........................................................................... 33 3.7. Are our children starting school ready to learn? .............................................................................. 37 3.8. Are our children achieving at school? .............................................................................................. 39 3.9. Are our young people making a positive transition post-school? ......................................................... 43 3.10. Are our older community members living fully and well? ................................................................... 46 3.11. What support services are there in our community? ....................................................................... 46 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................................. 55 2 FOREWORD – GROWING LACHLAN What is Growing Lachlan? Growing Lachlan is an initiative that has sought to identify the opportunities that the Lachlan Shire community see as being important to maintain, strengthen and grow Lachlan Shire. Over the last two years a team of community representatives has worked to gather and collate data, conduct community surveys and run a series of community conversations to understand how the Lachlan Shire is faring and what community members see as being the key challenges and opportunities facing the community. This Growing Lachlan report is a key output of that work. The report measures the vitality of the Lachlan Shire based on factors such as community health and wellbeing, civic and economic participation and financial security. The report provides local community members, service providers and government representatives with critical information that can help identify community development opportunities and set priorities for action. The intention in undertaking the above work has been to provide a platform to help improve life opportunities and build a strong and prosperous community for all Lachlan Shire residents, now and into the future. The report aims to: Highlight community members’ opinions about the state of play in Lachlan and their ideas about what is important for the future Provide a snapshot of how our community is doing on key indicators of wellbeing and Create an evidence base from which to set community development goals and provide a benchmark against which to track progress. In doing that it aims to: Provide a platform to bring people together for informed discussions about community needs and priorities and how to best address them Encourage the development of a shared agenda based on those priorities and Support alignment of government, business and community resources with community identified priorities. While there are clear themes that emerge through this report in terms of what community members care about, it is important to acknowledge that each of the Shire communities do have specific priorities of their own. This document presents the most common themes across the Shire, while also trying to acknowledge specific interests in different communities. This report is designed to enable community leaders and organisations to plan and develop integrated policies, services and strategies to improve community outcomes across the Lachlan Shire community now and in the future. The report identifies five key areas for focus going forward: Investing in community renewal Supporting economic sustainability and development Improving community safety and crime prevention Taking care of older and younger generations and Strengthening cultural recognition, respect and genuine participation. Community members have noted that the last area is one that underscores, and needs to inform, all of the preceding ones. 3 Our intention The preparation of this report has been supported and resourced through a group that is now being referred to as the Growing Lachlan Alliance (the Alliance). The Alliance includes: Lower Lachlan Community Services, Western Plains Regional Development, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation, the Lake Cargelligo/Murrin Bridge Interagency Group and Lachlan Shire Council. Part time Community Connection Officers (CCOs) have been engaged in Lake Cargelligo and Condobolin to coordinate the work of the Alliance and have played a critical role in the production of this report. It is the Alliance’s intention to use and build on this report over time to inform the ongoing development and implementation of a shared community agenda for Growing Lachlan based on the priority areas identified. The Growing Lachlan report will form part of an ongoing series of community resources that will evolve over time. You will see that there are some sections in the report where we are still working to collate information. We have identified the sort of additional information that we want to collect and we are continuing to work with the Lachlan Shire Council, Federal and State Government Departments and regional and local service providers to collect that information. Going forward the Growing Lachlan Alliance will also be looking to work with Lachlan community members, businesses, service providers, supporters and government to explore how best to address the priority areas that have been identified in this report and to develop ongoing data collection, community feedback and measurement and reporting tools to track what is done and delivered through that work. If you are interested in supporting this ongoing work please get in touch with us at [email protected]. The Growing Lachlan initiative is supported by the Australian Government Department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet as well as: Our partners 4 SECTION 1 - INTRODUCTION & OVERVIEW OF KEY FINDINGS Where is Lachlan Shire? Lachlan Shire is located in the Central West region of New South Wales. The Shire is classified as being a remote area under the Accessibility Remoteness Index of Australia. It is in Wiradjuri country, home to the Kalarie, Ngiyampaa and Paakintji people who are part of the Wiradjuri Nation. The Shire is located adjacent to the Lachlan River and is bounded by Bogan Shire and Warren Shire in the north, Narromine Shire, Parkes Shire and Forbes Shire in the east, Bland Shire in the south, and Carrathool Shire and Cobar Shire in the west. Lachlan Shire is 460 kilometres or approximately 6 hours’ drive west of Sydney and 350 kilometres or approximately 4.5 hours’ drive north-west of Canberra.1 The Shire covers a large area of 14,965 km2, taking approximately 3.5 hours to traverse end to end. Figure 1 – Lachlan Shire Condobolin is the largest town in Lachlan followed by Lake Cargelligo and Tottenham. There are also a