By Molly Magennis
A not-for-profit community organisation in Laverton have continued to support the Hobsons Bay municipality during the entirety of the pandemic, innovatively transforming their regular services to meet the needs of the community.
Laverton Community Integrated Services runs a community centre, a children’s centre and an education centre which supports locals of all ages in Hobsons Bay.
During the pandemic, the organisation was able to shift and adapt their services to continue supporting their clients, many of whom found their situations exacerbated due to the impacts of ceaseless lockdowns.
Community Services Coordinator Emily Hynes said some of the services the community centre normally offers include crisis intervention and emergency services, a youth driving program, wellbeing checks and a community café.
During the pandemic a lot of the youth based services were halted as funding providers pulled back. However the centre were able to keep their volunteers engaged, and shifted their services to fit in with COVID restrictions.
“[The volunteers] were doing community wellbeing checks with the elderly community as well as our normal clients too. So volunteers were still doing that, and they were able to do that from home,” Ms Hynes said.
“In collaboration with Hobsons Bay city council, we were delivering any kind of food items, material aid, medication that we could take to people that had tested positive or had been in isolation.
“If they had kids, if there was anything kids needed to, you know, keep amused with in terms of colouring books or anything like that we were able to provide all that as well.”
Education Centre Manager Bill Daly said when everything moved online, the biggest challenge they immediately identified was a lack of access to technology, and the knowledge to use it.
“You’re dealing with a lot of lower level English language students….so we had to do a few things like giving out laptops to students who didn’t have them,” he said.
“We also had to bring in a new digital support person to support all the teachers and [keep] all the students engaged.”
“I think the biggest lesson of the pandemic for us was how disadvantaged a significant cohort of people around the Laverton area were.”
If you need help or assistance, visit the Laverton Community Hub on 95-105 Railway Avenue or call 03 8368 0177.
