Department of Education: Victoria x Bachar Houli Foundation Partnership.

Background

In 2022, the Victorian Government committed \$14 billion to expand kindergarten programs across the state. The investment also launched Free Kinder, enabling more Victorian children to have the best start in life, no matter where they call home. Children from CALD backgrounds are under-represented in participation at kindergarten, so we coordinated a partnership with the Bachar Houli Foundation to help influence and reach this CALD community directly.

Objectives

CALD communities often prefer to access information through their own trusted networks, as their trust of authorities may be low. Interculturally-competent communications require empathy, so we used peer-to-peer channels to tailor and to tailor important messages from trusted sources and role models within the community.

Deliverables

Targeting CALD communities and Victorian parents, we worked with the Department of Education to develop a 12-month partnership with the Bachar Houli Foundation.

Activity within this partnership included media event participation, social media content, high quality video production and stakeholder engagement.

Impact

• Through the partnership, we successfully launched Free Kinder and enrolments for 2024 with attendance from major national news outlets; ABC, The Age, 7 News and 9 News.

• Demonstrating the effectiveness of research backed communication strategies, our insight that CALD communities often prefer to access information via their own trusted networks, meant key messages shared via Bachar's social channels which resulted in an engagement rate of 16.49%, were effectively received and engaged with.