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Northside Community Care
Northside Community Care is a Public Benevolent Institute with tax deductible status in the northern suburbs of Brisbane and has among its primary aims;
§ to provide ministry for the relief of poverty, suffering, distress, misfortune and helplessness of people regardless of age, sex, race, ethnic background, religion, political beliefs or marital status, and
§ to assist persons who are homeless, unemployed, sole parents or otherwise disadvantaged.
History and Structure
Northside Community Care (NCC) was established in its current form in 2007 and grew out of the vision of a number of people to support initiatives for the direct provision of relief to those in need. Membership includes a broad cross-section of professional and other skilled persons with business and other experience.
Initiatives and Programs
Northside Community Care has a number of programs established to provide direct services to people in need. These include;
Community Care Food Parcel
NCC provides a supply of groceries in food parcels and available to members of the local community to support them in need when there are needs as a result of reduced income, unforeseen debt and or crisis need.
Community Care Meal Bank
NCC also maintains a "bank" of pre-cooked meals to be provided when there are identified needs. Such needs include circumstances where a primary home carer is unwell or hospitalised and/or persons are unable to, for a period, care for their own cooking needs.
Breakfast Clubs and Meal Clubs
Northside Community Care provide breakfast to hundreds of primary and secondary students each week through the Breakfast Clubs. Working in local state schools, we provide nutritional support to young people, which assists with behaviour management and a positive community culture within the school.The program is developed in consultation with school
principals and chaplains and provides activities and food at
breakfast/lunch for identified and interested children as well as
mentoring, support and home visitation where needed.
Additionally, we are running a pilot programme for a Dinner Club. This initiative identifies high school aged young people who are at-risk or disadvantaged, and engages them weekly. Participants are providied with free transport to the program facility. On arrival, there is participation in a sporting activity before the preparation and cooking of a fresh meal. Once the meal is prepared, the participants and volunteer leaders share the meal around a table. This provides life skills, nutritional assistance, and the opportunity for positive role-modeling.
Prison Visitation Program
Northside Community Care also supports the delivery of relief services through a prisoner support program for women/mothers currently in prison. The program is currently limited in scope and includes the provision of practical gift packs in terms of shampoo and conditioner etc as well as limited people resources and costs associated with that.
In addition, NCCare is investigating the introduction of the successful COACH program which provides trained mentors to strengthen at risk families with children by facilitating economic, emotional, social and spiritual growth. The aim is to reduce the risk of family breakdown, family violence, child abuse, educational failure and isolation. |
