Thornlie’s Forest Lakes Family Centre moves to reassure community it will continue to operate

A THORNLIE family centre has reassured the community they will continue to operate despite funding changes.

The Forest Lakes Thornlie Family Centre’s future has been the topic of speculation following proposed funding cuts to the community sector.

The Department of Local Government and Communities proposed changes to its funding system in June this year, which would see the same amount of money pledged, but filtered through two separate streams.

However, co-ordinator Kristy Campbell stressed the Thornlie centre would operate next year and there were no plans to close anytime soon.

“There are still some ongoing discussions with the State Government in regards to how our funding will look in the future, but we will be operating,” she said.

“There’s no imminent plan to close any of our centres at this point. Our community centres have been running for over 25 years regardless of whatever happens with our funding, the intention is to continue to provide services for many more years to come.”

Mrs Campbell said numerous people had asked them whether they would be operating next year and they had experienced a drop off in business.

“I actually went to a Children’s Week event last Monday afternoon and one of the other services said ‘What are you guys going to do next year when you close down?’ and I said ‘I didn’t know we were!’” she said.

“Community members have been hesitant to participate in upcoming programs due to the false belief the centre will not be continuing to provide ongoing services.

“We did have quite a few people going ‘what’s happening, are you closing?’ and I’ve had a few schools say to me ‘we haven’t promoted you because we’re not sure if you’re going to be operating or not.’”

Mrs Campbell said the centre was currently working towards providing a range of programs catering for the whole community.

“Our programs are responsive and adaptive and we want to make sure we’re providing good quality programs to the community,” she said.

“We are doing some partnership work with William Langford Centre in Langford to increase the participation of multicultural families and enhancing those families within the City of Gosnells we don’t currently reach through our designed programs.”

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