Centacare North Queensland celebrates 40 years of excellent community services

Since its inception 24 years ago, Centacare's Mount Isa presence has steadily grown from only a handful of staff to three sites, delivering a wide range of valuable services.

Centacare North Queensland (NQ) Mount Isa covers everything from family and individual support, to employee assistance services, crisis homestay accommodation, specialist counselling and aged care services.

"The staff working in these programs are incredibly resourceful and resilient, much like the communities they work in," said Centacare NQ executive director Paula Washington. "Having lived, and worked in Mount Isa and surrounds myself, I know the challenges and the work done by our teams is extraordinary."

Centacare (NQ), which celebrated its 40th anniversary this month, is the social services ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Townsville and a not-for-profit organisation.

"Since 1979, Centacare NQ has continued to thrive, and expand our ability to reach out to an unrivaled geographical area in north Queensland," Ms Washington said. "We are fortunate to have the confidence of those in the communities we serve and are now one of the most well-known and respected social services agencies across the region. We have experienced exceptional growth and development as a direct result...."

In Mount Isa, a current project nearing completion is the 'DIGS' - a facility which will act as a meeting place and access point for people in the community who may be experiencing significant hardship or vulnerability.

The DIGS will include a kitchen, lounge/meeting area, laundry, showering facilities and the basics to support people attending to their most basic needs while staff assist with longer term goals such as accessing help, services and secure accommodation.

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"Our presence in Mount Isa is diverse and spread - overall, we are not only a large service presence in the community, we act as a base for many more remote outreach sites and operations. Our point of difference is actually being 'present' in communities that we have services in."

In the past financial year, Centacare NQ delivered more than 10,000 hours of service to a region extending from Townsville out to the Northern Territory border and helped more than 5000 people.

"It's an exciting time for Centacare NQ, and I feel very fortunate to be part of the journey as we continue the commitment to the region and provision of quality services that are accessible to all in our community, as was the original intention so many years ago," Ms Washington said.

Learn more about Centacare NQ at www.centacarenq.org.au.