Federal member for Page Kevin Hogan today announced almost $500,000 in funding for the Aboriginal community organisation Rekindling The Spirit.
Mr Hogan said the funding would be used to operate Rekindling The Spirit’s Social and Emotional Well-Being Counselling Service and its Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Treatment Service.
“I am committed to working closely with Indigenous Australians to make sure we get children to school, adults into work and making our communities safer. This is a priority Rekindling The Spirit has shared for many years by enabling individuals to make positive changes in their lives,” Mr Hogan said.
“Rekindling The Spirit is a service run by Aboriginal people for Aboriginal people and we are very fortunate to have such a community organisation like this in Page. Its family-based approach that mixes traditional healing with contemporary counselling, helps to create a better life for our whole community.”
Rekindling is focused on building positive parenting skills and family relationships, but in doing so addresses the many factors that can be detrimental to family like, such as alcohol, drug abuse and violence.
Rekindling The Spirit employs three counsellors and a Social and Emotional Well-Being caseworker in Lismore and a mental health worker in Tabulum.
It was founded in the 1990s by current managing director Greg Telford, a former child protection worker, and initially funded by the NSW government to provide case management and counselling on mandatory referrals from Corrections NSW, courts and the Department of Community Services.
