The most vulnerable in the Southern District - that is the distressing statistic for the Eurobodalla Shire's youngest children.
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The Southern NSW District Data Profile, published in late 2019, revealed the shire was the most disadvantaged local government area in several ways.
A Moruya service fears these statistics, combined with the 2019/2020 bushfires and now the COVID-19 pandemic has left shire families in a dire situation, and wants more funding to support them.
In the Southern NSW District, which also included the Bega Valley, Queanbeyan-Palerang, Goulburn Mulwaree, Snowy Monaro, Yass Valley and Upper Lachlan Shire, our children are disadvantaged.
The Eurobodalla Shire has the greatest percentage of vulnerable children under the age of five, 41 per cent, and 32 per cent of this group identified as Aboriginal. That means 41 per cent of children aged 0-5 have one or more parental risk factors, two or more perinatal risk factors or are at risk of significant harm.
In their first year of full-time school, the shire had the second highest proportion of developmentally vulnerable children for one or more factors (physical health and wellbeing, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills and communication skills and general knowledge).
We have the greatest percentage of children under 15 affected by mental illness, having used NSW mental health services, at 19 per cent. The highest percentage of this group are Indigenous, at 35 per cent.
Mogo Public School has the highest percentage of Indigenous students at 74 per cent, and the lowest Index of Community Socio-Education Advantage score. The score includes parents' occupation and education, the school's geographical location and the proportion of Indigenous students.The average is 1000; Mogo Public School's score is 694. Mogo students had the second lowest attendance rate at 87.5 per cent.
In 2016-2017, we had the highest percentage of children and young people reported to protection authorities at 12.7 per cent. We had the highest percentage at risk of significant harm at 9.5 per cent. Behind Goulburn Mulwaree, we had the second-highest percentage in out-of-home care at 1.3 per cent.
The shire had the highest unemployment rate, at 7.1 per cent, compared to the district average of 5.2 per cent. We had the lowest percentage of people working full-time, at 46.4 per cent. We had the highest proportion of households with less than $650 gross weekly income, at 29.4 per cent. We also had the lowest median income and ranked lowest in socio-economic advantage, based on the five-yearly census of population and housing.
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