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| Multifunctional Aboriginal Children’s Services (MACS) |
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MACS centres are designed to help Aboriginal communities
with their child care needs. These needs may be different to those of the
general population who use standard child care services. A MACS centre give
Aboriginal communities an opportunity to design and operate their own child
care services. MACS centres have the same regulatory requirements as that of a
Long Day Care. MACS Centres were established for entirely different reasons. It was recognised that many Aboriginal children were in a disadvantaged situation due to a number of factors including parents who were unemployed or on very low incomes and generally from low socio-economic and educationally deprived backgrounds. It was obvious that whilst these children were in great need of support if they were truly to achieve social justice through genuine access and equity, then some other arrangements had to be made since there would be no way that their parents could possibly afford to send these children to a commercial preschool. Apart from that, Aboriginal children have a right to conditions that are culturally appropriate and a system, which can monitor them as they progress through their education so as to provide them with the best possible chance of equity with non-Aboriginals. Clearly the mainstream centres could not provide such a service, nor could they be expected to. The only way those aims could be achieved is through a separate entity which is known as MACS. It is unfortunate that because MACS centres currently funded fundamentally the same way as mainstream centres that they are sometimes equated with those centres when they are in reality entirely different. Some of the services that a MACS may offer are:
Source ‘National MACS Policy 1992' |