The Nambucca Valley-based charity is run by sisters Karyn Thomas and Deborah Swan, who offer their services out of the Macksville Medical Centre.

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“We are dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of healthy child development in their first five years,” founder Karyn Thomas told NOTA.

“Our mission is to support children in the Nambucca Valley to achieve early learning success and ensure they are on track for successful transitions into kindergarten,” she said.

Through funding support from the Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) and the Mary Mackillop Today organisation, Young Minds Thrive has already provided more than 200 child health, development, hearing and school readiness assessments in 2024, many through the Empowering Futures School Screening Program where the organisation has reached out to and visited local schools.

“What drives us is the alarming data we have collected,” Ms Thomas said.

“The Nambucca Valley has been identified as one of the most vulnerable areas for children in the state with staggering rates of developmental delays and undetected hearing loss among local children, far surpassing national averages.”

Ms Thomas, with a background in health, and her sister with fifteen years’ experience as a primary school educator, are passionate in their aims to improve access for families and children to health, development and learning support services.

They believe that by introducing children and their families to the support services and potential treatments they require, as early as possible, Nambucca Valley kids will be given the best possible chance to succeed at school.

Young Minds Thrive is available to provide assessments for child hearing, development and behaviour in Macksville at the Macksville Medical Centre, 36 Wallace Street.

By Ned COWIE