Inner city's community engagement officer in action
New South Wales media release
Monday, 7 June 2010
Young, vulnerable and homeless people in and around Woolloomooloo and Newtown are in good hands thanks to Centrelink Community Engagement Officer (CCEO) Selina Hardy.
The CCEO program sees 90 specialist Centrelink staff, located across all capital cities and many regional centres, supporting some of the most vulnerable people in our community.
Selina’s job is to ensure homeless people in her patch, and those at risk of homelessness, will have better access to income support and many other services through Centrelink.
"My first job out of uni was then called Campbell House, now Mission Australia, in Darlinghurst," Selina said.
"I learned very quickly that homelessness is a complex issue and each person’s story is different. Now I get to make a difference for people, understanding their individual stories and helping them really turn things around.
"Once I met a man in one of the inner-city shelters and worked with him for a long time, he was afraid that alcoholism would ruin him if he ever left that world.
"He ended up finding the strength to stop the drinking and move out to the country, and years later I ran into him and he told me that what kept him going back then was the input of the people who cared about him and his life, myself among them.
"This sort of feedback is what makes me want to come to work each day"
Selina is involved in two service hubs for homeless and vulnerable people, WISH at Woolloomooloo and MATCH at the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre.
She says the WISH hub helps many people and is thriving but the Newtown hub MATCH has only just begun and perhaps people are not aware of it.
The MATCH hub is meets every Thursday from 2 pm to 4 pm at the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre and features workers from Centrelink, Housing NSW and Tenancy Advice representatives helping those who need it.
For more information, telephone the relevant Centrelink media contact.