🟠 Kid-friendly events this month

WHAT’S ON THIS WEEK 🎟️

• EVERY DAY TO SUNDAY 12/10/25, 10AM TO 5PM | Tesselaar Tulip Festival

• SATURDAY 11/10/25, 11AM-6PM | Holy Spirit Fete

• TUESDAY 14/10/25, 7.45-10PM | Suzette Herft @ Victorian Folk Music Club

📰 RECENT HEADLINES

“Very disappointing”: Knox Council furious after more than $400K of student support withdrawn

After 27 years of helping vulnerable local students, the State Government has shocked school communities and councils by axing the School Focused Youth Service (SFYS) from next year.

Knox is among more than 70 councils across the state affected by the decision, and now councillors are demanding the State Government reinstate support.

The program was introduced in 1998 to help year 5 to year 12 students at risk of disengaging with education due to factors such as mental health, poverty and family violence.

The State Government allocated about $12 million towards the program in 2024-25, with Knox receiving $413,848.

Department figures show absenteeism is on the rise: year 7 to 10 students were absent an average of 29.2 days across 2022-23, up nearly 30 percent compared to 2021-22.

On average, year 11 and 12 missed 23.4 days over 2022-23, a nearly 40 percent jump from 2021-22.

The Department did not release absenteeism figures in its 2023-24 Annual Report.

In September, the Department told Knox Council it would not renew its current SFYS contract at the end of January.

A Department spokesperson said the decision to cease funding was “made to minimise duplication and preference evidence-based programs”.

Other councils helping deliver the service in Eastern Melbourne include Monash, Maroondah and Whitehorse.

During last week’s council meeting, councillors passed a motion to send letters to Education Minister Ben Carroll, Premier Jacinta Allan and local MPs, requesting a review and reversal.

Knox councillor Meagan Baker said the closure of the service would have “direct and far-reaching impacts on students, both locally and across the state”.

“It threatens to leave a vulnerable cohort of students without support, disrupts established partnerships between schools and service providers and creates risk for educational and social outcomes,” she told the chamber.

Knox councillor and Youth Advisory Committee member Chris Duncan said the fact local schools had not yet received any communication from the Department was “a bit of a slap in the face”.

The Eastern Melburnian understands government schools have access to an ongoing $86 million Schools Mental Health Fund, contributing $25,000 per school at the base level. All schools can also access the “Menu” — a list of “evidence-based programs” including animal-assisted, art and music therapy.

“Excited”: Ringwood’s yoga community at the heart of a pioneering health study

A local yoga student with Atrial Fibrillation (AF) - the most common type of irregular heart rhythm - is bending his body in the name of science by participating in a world-first randomised study into the condition and the potential benefits of yoga.

Robert Cook started practising yoga three times a week at Ringwood’s Phoenix Yoga Studios after suffering from his first AF episode about four months ago on the way to work one morning.

“It came out of nowhere,” he told the Eastern Melburnian. “I just felt…not right.”

AF develops due to structural and electrical changes in the heart and affects about 500,000 Australians due to a range of risk factors, including age, sedentary lifestyle and obesity.

According to the head of clinical electrophysiology research at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, Professor Peter Kistler, people with AF experience symptoms such as shortness of breath, decreased exercise ability, chest pain, fatigue or weakness.

“Instead of beating in a steady, regular rhythm, the heart’s upper chambers quiver or ‘fibrillate’,” he told the Eastern Melburnian. “The condition can lead to heart failure and increases the risk of stroke.”

Cook said after he received his diagnosis and initial treatments, he entered a “complete unknown” space of how to find a new balance in life, with yoga and the study giving him a new sense of hope.

“I feel excited about it - [it has] the potential for others benefiting around the world.”

Professor Kistler said he chose to study the effects of yoga as a potential treatment for AF as it “encompasses physical activity as well as breathwork, mindfulness and meditation”.

“We hope that our study will help promote the benefits of yoga to the medical community, providing patients and healthcare professionals with evidence-based treatment for AF,” he said.

Phoenix Yoga Studios owner, Sanjay Lavoipierre, said it was “amazing that somebody in the Western hemisphere decided to take on yoga as part of a scientific study for a medical condition”.

Recruiting for the study closes by mid-2026 and results are expected by the end of 2027. For more information, click here.

SEEN THIS WEEK 🤓

🗓️ The best kids’ attractions and events across Melbourne’s eastern suburbs in October

From learning about the life cycles of bees in Montrose to spooky fun in Croydon, there’s plenty to keep young eastern Melburnians entertained this month.

Please reach out if I’ve forgotten anything and if you go to any of these events, please send through a photo and I can shout you out in an upcoming newsletter.