The Department of Communities has launched its Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation (ACCO) Strategy, empowering Aboriginal children, families and communities to choose their own futures.
Director General of the Department, Mike Rowe said the ACCO Strategy responded to the need to improve the way the Department commissioned and delivered services to Aboriginal children, families and communities.
“The Strategy acknowledges the pivotal role played by ACCOs in delivering culturally secure services to Aboriginal people,” Mr Rowe said.
“It recognises that when Aboriginal people provide place-based, locally led and culturally safe services to Aboriginal people, the outcomes are far better,” he said.
“The vision for the ACCO Strategy is for Aboriginal children, families and communities to be empowered to choose their own futures from secure and sustained foundations provided by the ACCOs in the places where they live and work.”
Meanwhile, one ACCO, Boorloo Bidee Mia, has celebrated its first year of operation, helping to deliver life-changing support to some of Perth’s most vulnerable individuals experiencing homelessness.
The name Boorloo Bidee Mia means ‘Perth pathway to housing’ in the Whadjuk Noongar language. It typifies the approach of the service to provide residents with the support they need to transition out of homelessness and into stable, long-term accommodation.
Under the leadership of Wungening Aboriginal Corporation and working with Noongar Mia Mia, Boorloo Bidee Mia currently provides a home to 66 residents, with 64 of the 66 rooms occupied, and more than 70 per cent of those residents identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
In its first year, Boorloo Bidee Mia has assisted with the transition of six individuals into longer-term public or community housing.
This includes individuals who prior to engagement with Boorloo Bidee Mia had experienced decades of vulnerability to rough sleeping.
The 28-page Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation Strategy 2022 to 2032 can be accessed at this PS News link.
