THE Junee Community Centre provides help to more than 700 of the town’s residents and, despite the sudden and unexpected resignation of the centre’s co-ordinator, everything is continuing as normal.
Services provided by the centre range from Meals on Wheels to home maintennce and support, with the aim of helping residents to live in their own homes while keeping much of their indepedence.
Secretary of the centre’s management committee Miriam Dayhew said the departure of Helen Jennings was unexpected, but would not affect services or their provision to clients.
“We work with the Junee MPS in returning people to their homes (after hospital) to cope with support, rather than go into care,” Mrs Dayhew said.
“Staff and volunteers work hand-in-hand to provide the best service for Junee,” she said.
Meanwhile, a planned review of the centre’s services is still set to go ahead.
“We provide really important services to keep people in their homes and assist them in their daily lives. It’s important that we fit within the framework of social services,” Mrs Dayhew said.
A team of consultants are scheduled to visit Junee in the future to inspect the centre’s operations and Mrs Dayhew said they would be speaking to stakeholders of the centre “from the mayor down”.
Clients, residents and staff will have the opportunity to make submissions to the review in the future.
“The committee has been investigating where the centre sits and if we are providing the best services (to the community),” Mrs Dayhew said.
She also believes the sudden departure of Ms Jennings would not make the external review any more difficult to complete, but the role may not be replaced – depending on the review’s outcome.
The community centre which relies heavily on volunteers and part-time staff could potentially undergo a resturcture if the consultant process recommends changes to service delivery.
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