It’s been a busy couple of months, Imagined Futures has been working on a new Communication and Marketing Strategy with the Fremantle Chamber of Commerce and a Framework for Measurement and Evaluation with the Centre for Social Impact. We’ve also had three events, a Cultural Connections Day and two Community of Practice events; training for frontline workers in Family and Domestic Violence and a networking event, Navigating Children’s Mental Health Services in the South West Metro Region.

Imagined Futures Community of Practice hosted a second workshop on Understanding Family and Domestic Violence, for frontline workers in the South West Metro region. This interactive training session, led by Communicare, focused on understanding the signs of abuse and practical strategies to safely support someone experiencing family and domestic violence.

The Djeran Cultural Connections Day is an ongoing opportunity for Aboriginal children in care to connect to culture, family and community. This event brought together 58 children in care and their families and carers and local service providers including Department of Communities, Stephen Micheal Foundation and Neami National to run cultural games and activities.

The Community of Practice held a networking event for frontline workers, Navigating Children’s Mental Health in the South West Metro Region, which brought together 40 people from 22 agencies Keynote speaker the Commissioner for Children and Young People the Hon. Jacqueline McGowan-Jones spoke with eloquence and p

assion about the need for young person’s voices to be heard, the urgency for action to address childhood poverty and trends such as the rapid increase in numbers of young people from multicultural communities requiring support.

Upcoming events:

Friday 12th July – Makuru Cultural Connections Day. Imagined Futures is continuing to provide opportunities for Aboriginal children in care to connect to community and culture. Regular events are being held to support children to connect to siblings they may be separated from, participate in cultural activities and build a sense of belonging.

Friday 2nd August – Interschool Cultural Games Carnival. Imagined Futures is working in partnership with Stephen Micheal Foundation to support a 2nd Annual Cultural Games Carnival at Fremantle Oval. The carnival will involve students in year 5 and 6 from10 schools in the South West Metro region and surrounds. The students will learn about Aboriginal culture through competing in traditional games, participating in cultural education, art workshops, Noongar dances and sharing traditional food.

Below are agency updates provided at Imagined Futures meetings in March and April 2024.

Leadership Group – chair Michael Piu, St Patrick’s Community Support Centre
Youth Initiative – chair Annette Boyle, Community Representative
Mental Health – chair Clory Carrello, Cockburn Integrated Health
Davis Park – chair Julie Mitchell SMYL
Housing and Homelessness – chair Michael Piu, St Patrick’s Community Support Centre
Open Door Community of Practice – chair Sue Nickisson, Communicare

Leadership Group

Financial Wellbeing Collective Presentation – Helena Jakupovic.

• Financial Wellbeing Collective (FWC) services include –
• Financial Literacy Education
• Energy coaching
• Financial coaching
• Financial counselling
• Emergency Relief/ Utility grants

FWC offer a range of engagement methods, with 70% of enquiries for service coming through their online enquiry form. The FWC also collects a wide range of data that they can share to help build a picture of financial wellbeing at the local level.

The group discussed financial challenges facing young people in particular and noted the importance of improving financial literacy in this cohort.

Helena advised that they have capacity to take on a more referrals for the Energy Ahead program. To access this program, people must identify as experiencing financial hardship and be a Synergy customer.

Imagined Futures has been working closely with the FWC as a key partner in the Where is the door? project. work. This project is promoting the FWC’s services to community touchpoints such as schools, daycare centres and GPs.

Agency Updates:

Members of the leadership group acknowledged the government’s recent announcements about substantial investment into Homelessness Support services and Family Domestic Violence services.

City of Melville

• Merial Pickering has commenced as the new Director Community Development at the City.

Uniting WA

• Escaping Violence program in WA is being extended to June 2025

Perth South Local Jobs

• Preparing for FIFO workshops run by Happiness Co are coming up. The one in IF region is on the 11th of June in Coolbellup

St Pats

• St Pats has appointed a new Director of Housing – Cynara Miles – as part of its commitment to growing community housing.
• Australian Alliance to End Homelessness is having their national summit in Fremantle – making this accessible to our teams and the broader community. St Pats signed up as the principal sponsor at the event.

Fremantle Women’s Health Centre

• For any staff or client communities who would like public health information, Centre staff will be available to run workshops through the month of June.

Youth Justice

• Mandurah office up and running.

Communities

• Joint Family and Domestic Violence teams are moving from a five day a week to seven day a week.
• A Family safety coordinator and worker will soon be allocated to each District. These positions are responsible for providing a case management response to high-risk families.
• Increase in funding to Breathing space – Men’s behaviour change programs.
• Child protection recruitment campaign has started again. The campaign will run over a twelve-month period.

Anglicare WA

• Reported that they are finding that they are getting more buy in from schools for their School Wellbeing Officer programs. Manning Primary, Bibra Lake Primary and Warnbro Senior High School are all coming on board from the southern region. There are approximately 17 schools involved across metropolitan Perth.
• They are co-locating family violence counsellors in primary schools – having a look in this District to see if there is an appetite.
• They are considering the issue of building resilience in children – often attached to family separation. There is an opportunity to provide more support in this region by providing the Building Resilience in Children program.

City of Fremantle

• City has been awarded a Department of Education Early years grant to bolster their efforts in this area.

City of Cockburn

• Almost all of their free or low cost programs are full or oversubscribed.
• They are still running the Baby Makes 3 program. This program has some spaces available.

Youth Initiative

Agency Updates:

Wanslea

• New to IF partnership – supports families with children who have a diagnosed disability or delay
• Normally have about 300 referrals per month, last month had 480 referrals
• Wanslea has adopted to Maaraka Dabakarn model, developed by Connecting Community for Kids, in several locations to support families. This program includes capacity building for parents and carers whose children may have a developmental delay.

Palmerston

• Running a music therapy program starting in May. The program will be run at Fremantle Library. Students don’t need a musical background, the program is about connecting emotions to music, building resilience and leadership.
• Palmerston waitlist is 4-5 weeks

headspace

• YACWA funded a safe space group. Running Thursdays 4-5pm in Fremantle Library, for ages 13-17 years. Switch, board games and pizza.
• Skateboarding workshops and a skateboarding competition were run in the City of Fremantle over the school holidays. These events had great feedback and were well attended
• headspace is working on the Woolstores building activation. This skateboarding space is important to the youth community.

Imagined Futures

• Imagined Futures is leading an environmental scan of youth services and activities in the region. This information will be helpful resource for the group going forward

City of Cockburn – Children’s Services

• Froggy’s has been very well attended – 80-90 people (new record of numbers)
• City of Cockburn upcoming events:
• Dockers Cultural Immersion Day for years 5/6 during NAIDOC week
• Family Bush Dance for children 10 and under – 17th May

City of Cockburn – Youth Centre

• Youth survey is currently out and available on COC website if YP living, working, or playing in the COC would like to provide their feedback, each YP goes into the draw to. win a $100 voucher)
• Bliss Co – Youth services have a bus for 10 years and up that runs craft activities. Free program
• Term Two program is now running.
• Referrals waitlist – 4-6 week timeframe (agencies encouraged to get in contact with Shan via phone (94113880) or via email (snicholas@cockburn.wa.gov.au) to discuss any potential referrals)

Fremantle Rockingham Family Support Network

• FSN is flexible with the service they provide. They can meet clients face-to-face or chat over the phone whichever is the client’s preference.

Mental Health

Agency Updates:

Richmond Wellbeing

• The Hearing Voices Network is no longer funded by the Mental Health Commision, WAPHA is currently funding this program.
• After 40 years, Albany Fellowship House in Albany has lost its funding. This is the only drop-in centre in the region for supporting mental health. The organisation can self-fund for the next 6 months, in the meantime they are looking for more funding.

WAPHA

• There is a national campaign running to promote Head to Health on social media
• Working on GP engagement with Fiona Stanley Hospital – educating GPs to refer to services
• Neami National is delivering suicide prevention training under the Strategy
• Lots of GP education coming up including Initial Assessment and Referral (IAR) training
• Community awareness marketing campaign – building on inside my mind.

Communicare

• Early intervention program for male perpetrators has been funded in 5 locations (including Fremantle in our region)
• Running 3 counselling programs, most common presenting issues are suicide ideation amongst young people and FDV (Family Domestic Violence)

City of Cockburn

• January was extremely busy for counselling services.
• Financial counselling services are available and can also provide financial education.

Connecting Community for Kids

• Maaraka Dabakarn – supports families on Saturday mornings to connect with each other – has now been running for over 1 year. This group has been able to identify and support mental health issues, developmental delays such as Autism and ADHD. 30% of people attending have a multicultural background.
• The Port School of Early Learning is also running a program called 100’s and 1000’s which is testing a method for intervention by supporting children to receive health checks every 100 days. This is being run in partnership with Wanslea.

Imagined Futures Where is the door?

• A series of flyers which have first point of contact for mental health, FDV, Financial wellbeing services will be shared will community touchpoints – including schools, day care centres, community programs, GP’s.
• A targeted campaign will Initially target parents and carers.
• Currently developing a Where is the door? website with these resources and other local supports