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Patrons enjoying some board games at the centre. Photos by R.Kendall www.richvisuals.com.auGo to Photo Gallery. |
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Day Centre & Services
Social Work
The past year has been challenging for the social workers at St. Mary’s as our heavy workload has remained constant.
We have made almost 2,000 contacts with clients this year, not counting the little ‘chats’ throughout the day.
Many clients come to us with increasingly complex issues.
We attempt to offer practical and emotional support, options and pathways towards change and try to work with them to improve their daily living situation.
As an example, we have been working with a guy in his mid 30’s for the past 11 months who presented ‘homelessness’ as his primary problem.
He was hungry, in poor health and inadequately clothed.
Our assessment revealed he had been living with mental illness since his teenage years and drug misuse from late childhood.
He had no family prepared to acknowledge him and no support networks, other than others who were drug addicted.
We started by working through the issues slowly, step by step.
We linked him with a health services so he could obtain medication for his mental illness.
We assisted him in accessing a de-tox service because he wanted to be drug free.
Subsequently we linked him with a specialist worker who worked on a one-to-one basis to house him. (We supplied the supporting letters and necessary support plan).
We discussed the furniture he would need and planned how to gather it once his housing was established.
He started eating at St Mary’s every day; we informed him about other food services and gathered clothing for him from another service.
At this point in time, ‘our’ guy is drug free, has his own little unit, is eating well, is adequately clothed and is attending counselling on a regular basis with us, and with another agency. (We closely liaise to provide seamless support).
He is also linked in with our psychosocial rehabilitation program and is taking part in many of their groups.
We are currently discussing future dental treatment, however we will do this slowly, as this issue is a little scary for him.
Recently, he told us he has made telephone contact with one of his brothers, and they are arranging a face-to-face meeting.
He’s very excited.
All of this change is not a simple linear process. It is two steps forward and one step back.
Early in the process he had a “full blown” drug misuse relapse, lasting two months, and many little drug-use ‘lapses’ afterwards. He says he often feels low and alone.
We accept the lapses, build on the strengths and constantly remind him that he is not alone.
We are working to boost his self-esteem and find he is slowly demonstrating a very strong and quirky sense of humour.
Together we celebrate his gains.
Social work is hard work, but often very rewarding.
Recreation
Recreation gives people a chance to break from their routine and do something enjoyable and sociable.
We offer a variety of activities to suit all.
People can run them if they want to:
Footy Tipping
AFL
Footy Ticket Distribution
Bike Builders
Pool Team and Women’s Pool
Chess Club.
Most activities offered were in small groups comprising:.
Sporting teams
Passive sports
Day trips
Overnight trips
Holidays and in-house activities.
Last year there were:
176 who accessed the program
Male 135 (40 were new)
Female 30 (11 were new)
Some of the highlights were the:
Joint Art & Bike Exhibition with No Limits
The Community Cricket Game with NAB Bank
The Tasmania holiday
The first ever women’s pool team from St. Mary’s.
The recent strategic plan is exciting because it will use a more collaborative team approach by centre staff in determining the activities program design.
A special thank you 'for support' to the AFL, and to these four, of our sixteen football clubs:
Richmond
Carlton
Footscray
Melbourne
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“We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being un...”
- Mother Teresa
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