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Funding boost for Interrelate will help Cobar families A recent funding boost for Interrelate, a sort of services and we want to get it out there ing support, counselling, family dispute resolunot for profit provider of relationship ser- to let them know that we’re here and we can tion, mediation, relationship education, parenting support, relationship and sexuality educavices that specialises in supporting parents help,” she said. and children, will ensure more families in Interrelate can offer families a wide variety tion for students, carer support, domestic vioCobar get the help they need. of support including: mental health and wellbe- lence and family violence support. Interrelate Business Development Manager Ian Thwaites was in Cobar last week to meet with local Interrelate staff and talk about how they can help local families and, in particular, what services the Children’s Contact Service (CCS) can offer them. “The aim of CCS [which comes under the Interrelate banner] is to help families that are separated from their children to have safe contact and good contact with the other partner,” Mr Thwaites said. Interrelate is currently looking at how they can provide better outreach options for families in Far Western NSW. “Distance is a very big problem,” Mr Thwaites said. “We are based in Dubbo and are looking at virtual online options that we might be able to provide to communities such as here and Bourke.” Prior to COVID, Mr Thwaites said all of their supervised visits had been face-to-face. As a result of COVID restrictions on movement and travel, they started offering families online supervised visits which, Mr Thwaites said, worked very well. “We were able to provide online supervised visits and telephone calls and we often now Cobar’s Interrelate Child, Youth & Family Worker Charmaine Arnold met with use Zoom as well. Interrelate Business Development Manager Ian Thwaites and Children’s Contact “If any Cobar families are interested in or- Service staff Mehdi Nazan and Gavin Rieschieck in Cobar last week to discuss ways they ganising Zoom visits, particularly when fami- can provide more services for Cobar families. lies are separated and one partner is not really feeling comfortable supervising the visits or there’s some other issues, it’s an option that we can hopefully provide.” 6 Barton St Ph: 6836 2725 Mr Thwaites said Interrelate’s goal is to help families get to the point where ultimately they can manage their own arrangements. “So while we do the supervision, we also support families during that time to come up with arrangements for themselves that will work,” he said. Cobar’s Interrelate Child, Youth & Family Worker, Charmaine Arnold, said the extra funding to broaden the Children’s Contact Service was good news for local families. “There’s families in Cobar that need these Meals served Monday Monday to Saturday
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Follow us on Instagram @bryans_empirehotel Wednesday April 5, 2023 The Cobar Weekly Page 7
