Murriwatch Chief Executive Officer Ken Georgetown said the staff of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander support centre are doing a great job supporting clients across a wide range of programs including a homeless assistance program and cell visitors program.
“We’ve got a number of programs including the diversion from custody program, which is like a sobering up centre where we look after clients who have been diverted from police custody for public intoxication,” he said.
“We take them from there [the watch house] and look after them while they’re sobering up. It’s a 24/7 set up; we bring them into a better environment where we can give them a meal and a bit of support, and a referral straight after that.”
The unit operates in Brisbane, Townsville, Palm Island and Mackay.
Mr Georgetown said “We really just go out there and do the business and try and educate people. Part of my role is to go out and inform about what we do.”
Speaking of the Cell Visitors Services, he said “Our cell visitors are authorised to go into watch-houses. Once a person identifies that they are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, then we encourage them to ring us and we can assist that person. They can get pretty agitated and we try and break that down and talk to the client.”
Murriwatch also assist indigenous and non indigenous homeless persons.
He said “Our outreach team will go out into the public spaces and look for our lot and try and refer them back to the hostel and then we can stabilise them with our case management team; within three to twelve months we can stabilise their situation; get them back into paying rent; get them some food because we have a cook at the hostel who also cooks for the clients. We don’t just deal with our mob – we deal with non-indigenous people too.”
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