Sustainable services give hope
to children and young people

Sustainable services give hope to children and young people

Parkerville Children and Youth Care’s vital Child Advocacy Centres have been the result of the Western Australian community coming together to ensure children, young people and families who have experienced child sexual and physical abuse have a safe place to begin their healing journey.

Since the launch of the first Child Advocacy Centre in Australia in 2011, the George Jones Child Advocacy Centre, and the Multi-agency Investigative Support Team (MIST), Parkerville has been committed to growing and providing sustainable services within the centres. We are thrilled to share that through a 5 year partnership, the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation has helped in securing the future of the MIST services provided at the George Jones Child Advocacy Centre in Armadale, the Stan and Jean Perron Child Advocacy Centre in Midland and a smaller service located in the Perth District Office of the Western Australia Police.

Parkerville Children and Youth Care’s Child Advocacy Centres are community-based, family-friendly facilities where professionals from different agencies and disciplines come together to provide specialist wrap-around services for children and young people who have experienced sexual and/or physical abuse, and also to their families where appropriate. Police, child protection workers, psychologists, child and family advocates, family therapists and other allied health workers form the MIST who work together to conduct all policing requirements in supportive environments and assist the child or young person to reduce the harmful and long-term impacts of abuse related trauma.

Last year Parkerville Children and Youth Care’s Child Advocacy Centres supported 1,280 children and young people who had experienced trauma from child sexual and physical abuse, an increase of 19.63% and the demand is only growing.

With no government funding for the MIST services, Parkerville Children and Youth Care has relied on the generosity of the Western Australian community and organisations to fund the vital wrap-around support and therapeutic services to children young people, and families.

Working in close partnership with WA Police to identify needs, Parkerville Children and Youth Care has agreed that expansion of the MIST and Child Advocacy services to the Southwest metropolitan corridor is likely to be the next step in our expanded service delivery to the Western Australian Community. The funding from the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation not only helps to create sustainability for the Armadale and Midland centres and Perth service but also allows Parkerville Children and Youth Care to undertake a feasibility study and investigate what we will need to do to begin delivering a MIST and other trauma treatment supports to children and young people who have experienced abuse in that region.

Funding from the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation will also support much-needed research into the outcomes of the service both in relation to longer-term wellbeing outcomes for those children and young people supported through Parkerville Children and Youth Care’s Child Advocacy Centres. The research will also be aimed at identifying what impact the MIST and Child Advocacy Services provide to the Western Australian community more broadly.

Parkerville Children and Youth Care Chief Executive Officer, Kim Brooklyn, shared ‘We are immensely thankful to the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation for their support and significant contribution towards the operational sustainability of our current Child Advocacy Centres so that we can focus on the need for expansion of our service delivery footprint for the benefit of Western Australian children and young people, and their families, who have experienced abuse.’

We believe that together we can build a community where all children and young people feel safe to dream, to thrive, and to reach their fullest potential.