A Cessnock-based in-reach service will be increasing its hours over the Christmas period in order to meet the needs of the community during what can be a difficult time of year.
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Cessnock Supports - which was launched by Reflex Social Services in 2019 - offers counselling, peer-to-peer support, coaching and mentoring, community education, and social health education to the people of the Cessnock local government area.
Reflex was operational in several sectors surrounding the Central Hunter region at the time of the 2019/20 bushfires, and during the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
When NSW Government funding became available in the wake of the 2019/20 bushfires, Reflex undertook the work to develop a program for the Cessnock community specifically, aimed its requirements as much as possible.
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"We are not here to replace any other services in the region, many of them are critical, and we have already lost Hunter Hands of Hope - we cannot afford to lose more," Reflex's director of operations and clinical, Damien Southam said.
"But many of these services are branches and offshoots of larger organisations, operating as they operate anywhere else.
"We want to push hard into creating services for Cessnock that are just for that community and its needs uniquely."
Cessnock Supports started by offering ad hoc services in local cafes, a drop-in at the Masonic Hall once a month, and community peer education.
Due to COVID, these services moved to Zoom and Microsoft teams and will continue to be available online, while face-to-face sessions resumed last week.
"Our booking and online drop-in systems mean that the community can reach out on their time preference, according to their needs only," Mr Southam said.
"As we grow our connections to other services, and create new services of our own, this will hopefully mean that people can have the full spectrum of their needs met faster, and relieve some of the load on traditional services."
Bookings can be made with Cessnock Supports via cessnocksupports.com.au, and on their Facebook page.
Further information can be found at reflex.org.au.
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