Latrobe Valley Imagination Library

Project summary:

The first 1000 days of life is a critical time for physical, cognitive, social, and emotional health. What happens in the first 1000 days has been shown to have an impact throughout life. Literacy levels for children are low for Latrobe City when compared to the rest of Victoria. It was reported in the Australian Early Development Census in 2021 that 25% of children in Latrobe City were reported to be developmentally vulnerable or at-risk in the literacy language domain.

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a community- based, early literacy intervention that sends a book each month to the home of a child in the local community, with an accompanying family “tip sheet” which helps families engage with the book in ways that drive language development and early literacy.

This program is delivered at no cost to the families. To deliver this program, the Latrobe Health Assembly partnered with United Way Australia, who has been delivering the Imagination Library in Australia since 2014. The Latrobe Valley Imagination Library delivers monthly books and tip sheets to eligible children until the age of 3. To be eligible, the child must live in the Latrobe Valley and be born between 1st January 2023 and 30th June 2024.

“If it wasn’t for the program, I probably wouldn’t even read to my kids as much as I do, and they wouldn’t have this many variety of books to be interested in” – Imagination Library recipient.

The Latrobe Health Assembly has also partnered with Latrobe City Council’s Maternal and Child Health to help promote the program to families at their check- up appointments. This project aims to increase early childhood literacy and engagement between parents and their children while reading together.