The beginning

Conferences and visits from experts during the years 1974 to 1976 led to concern about preventing child abuse within the Canberra community. This was the motivation for the formation of our service. The plan was to set up a telephone counselling service to be manned by volunteers working from their own homes. Setting up took fourteen months. Volunteers were selected and trained, a back up system of professional consultants was organised, procedures developed and legal issues clarified.  Strong sponsorship from Life Line and the regional Community Services was a vital component of success.

In June 1977 the service was introduced to Canberra on television following a programme on child abuse. There was no money, no staff and no office. Clients made their first contact through LifeLine.

The nature of the service had been established. Volunteers were trained, clients were referred to them, they called the clients on a regular basis from their homes, they were supervised by volunteer professional consultants, they received on going training three or four times a year, and attempts were made to have them provide statistics. This basic package has stood the test of time, and in its essentials has not changed.

In the early days the service relied on free publicity from 2CA and donations from the community.

The First Years

In June 1978 the Department of Social Security under the Family Support Service Scheme gave a grant of $15,000. The service obtained a room in the Health Promotion Centre at Childers Street and adopted a constitution. In that first year there were fourteen volunteers, who spoke to 63 clients. By January 1979 the first co-ordinator was appointed, working weekday mornings. As Parent Support Service it was incorporated in 1979. The service commissioned an independent survey into its effectiveness, with positive results. Clients tended to be parents of young children who were under stress but not necessarily abusive. Canberra was growing very rapidly. In the new suburbs there were many young families newly arrived and poorly equipped to find friends and support networks. Shortage of infrastructure, such as telephones and public transport meant that young mothers were stuck at home feeling completely isolated.

There was a flurry of activity. Over the next two years a monthly newsletter was produced, there was fund raising, networking, advertising, public speaking. Intake and training of volunteers went on twice a year. In the second year of operation 81 clients were supported. The co-ordinator was thanked for the extra unpaid hours she had worked. Some things don’t change.

In February 1980 a think tank focussed on future directions.  This was the first of many such meetings held at significant points in the history of PSS. By October 1980 office hours were extended from 9am to 3pm, and a second co-ordinator was appointed to job share. There was an increase of contacts by parents of older children and teenagers. PSS began running groups, including a Parents Skills Group, a group for isolated parents and a seminar on Child Sexual Abuse. In 1982 a pilot project for children in separated families was run. It was so successful that it formed the basis for the After Separation Programme.   This programme, organised by a co-operative of organisations, but with infrastructure supplied by PSS, ran from 1984 to 1996.  It helped hundreds of separated parents and their children aged from 2 to 16. It formed the subject of talks given in Australia and at an international conference in Europe. It was a particularly successful pioneer in the field of assisting families with separation.
 
By 1983 the needs of Blended Families led to groups being run for them, also groups ran for parents of teenagers. Some volunteers were specifically trained for community education. The statistics recorded that 45% of callers were single parents and that volunteers spent an average of eight hours in contact with each clients.
 
During the 1980s there were discussions of aims and objectives, and promotion of community awareness. The emphasis in training was on quality of service and job satisfaction. Duty statements were upgraded, terms and conditions of employment were reviewed and pay scales were linked to the Victorian Award. Hours were expanded to 9am to 5pm. During the first ten years the support of the media was crucial. There continued to be concern that co-ordinators were giving a lot of volunteer hours to meet demand. Issues were raised about the isolation of volunteers, poor attendance at consultants groups and ongoing training, and poor keeping of statistics. By 1986-87 the client contacts had grown from 63 in that first year to around 600 contacts a year.  The one small room at Childers Street is still remembered by all those who worked there as totally inadequate, cramped and crowded. All meetings had to be conducted from members’ homes. The end of the 80s saw a continuing struggle to maintain a quality service in spite of inadequate resources. At the change over to local Government there was considerable anxiety until funds were secured through the ACT Community Grants Programme.

Majura Centre

In April 1990 the service was able to move to newly built premises of the Northside Community Service in Dickson. They received a grant to buy new furniture, and the service now had three small rooms and the use of a large meeting room when required. The greatest challenge was to meet the increasing client demand with no increase in resources. Reviews were made of the sort of relationships which should exist between co-ordinators, consultants and volunteers, roles and responsibilities were discussed and clarified. Paid supervision was introduced for co-ordinators, and pay scales were now pegged to AS04 Public Service positions. Publicity had to be kept to a minimum, because any mention of the service by the media brought about an increase in client calls which could not be adequately met.

During the years 1990 -1995 client calls per year ranged from 800 to 900. There were more crisis calls, with violence, family complexity and separation causing concern. The co-ordinators, under pressure from the management to limit face to face work, were aware of clients who could not be adequately assisted on the phone. There were less volunteers recruited as changing social conditions meant that women were now seeking education and paid work. Consultants were scarce so co-ordinators were debriefing volunteers more frequently. Funding agencies were requiring agencies to put in place more formal structures. Compulsory superannuation and adequate insurance led to further revision. All these factors led to the organisation just keeping afloat. However, they  managed to purchase a fax machine and an answering machine. A second hand photocopier and computer were donated. They successfully obtained funding to establish a Network of community agencies dealing with families, allowing coordination of efforts and training opportunities. Research by a student from the University of Canberra looked at the effect of one-off calls on client’s anxiety at the completion of the call and six weeks after.  This research indicated that relief of anxiety was significant and was sustained well over the six week period. This was a welcome boost for morale of the co-ordinator and the Management Committee.

In the 1995-96 financial year funding was increased significantly but at the sacrifice of the After Separation Programme which lost its funding. The stretched resources the organisation had endured for years meant this increase was a chance to meet urgent needs and for appropriate pay and conditions of work. It allowed more paid relief and a better telephone system. This resulted in the number of client calls jumping to over 1400. Co-ordinators were relieved of face to face work, by employing volunteer newly graduated counsellors under an experienced supervisor. A flow of volunteer telephone workers was discovered by utilizing school newsletters. Work was done on developing policies, job descriptions, work contracts, stats forms, a logo, and new pamphlets.

Kippax

In 1997 the Northside Community Service needed the space PSS occupied  and rooms were found at Kippax Health Centre. These rooms consisted of three good sized rooms, a waiting area and the use of meeting rooms when required. Resources were still very limited to meet the needs of parents and the service still found it impossible to advertise, so that there was anxiety that many parents did not know of the help being offered. Co-ordinators and management were working heavy voluntary hours in order to keep afloat. This was the 20th year of the service and a mission statement was adopted. “To provide a free and accessible service to parents who are in crisis or who need ongoing support.”

During the 1990s a system of yearly reviews of volunteers was introduced, with volunteers able to consider their work, and give feedback about the organisation. Later the review system also covered paid workers and the management committee. At the end of the century PSS was involved with other organisations in the Family Support Sector Review, run by the Department of Education of Family Services.

During early 2000 a new service Parentline was inaugurated in Canberra. It was designed to give referrals and advice to parents and to be a first port of call for parents needing assistance. PSS engaged in efforts to bring about cooperation with this service. Some twelve months later Parentline was open to tender and PSS pulled out all stops to write a tender which would win the contract.  PPS was granted management of Parentline in August 2001. This allowed our phone lines to be open from 9am to 9pm week days and for paid workers to be available on the phones, freeing the co-ordinators  to some extent, for other essential activities.  This was also the year when a Service Charter was developed and volunteers were made aware of indigenous issues as part of their on-going training. Some months after Parentline came on board PSS received notice they could not remain at Kippax. The rooms had also become crowded, with the requirements of the Parentline workers added to PSS  activities.

Duffy

In 2002 the move was made to a suite of rooms which had been the infant health centre, next to Duffy Primary School. This was self contained and had two large rooms, two reasonably sized rooms, a waiting area, and facilities. There was a sense of relief that the rooms were self contained and large enough. At the same time workers were anxious that the funding for Parentline was in doubt. It was to their great credit and that of the managers that morale remained high. After an anxious wait, funding was assured, however, for both PSS and Parentline funds were granted on a yearly basis.

The number of client calls had through these years crept up to 3000 a year. In addition to core business the organisation continued to take on projects, either alone or in partnerships to run groups of various kinds. There was also a continuing involvement in community networks and community activities, including support for bushfire victims in the Duffy area. At the end of 2002 the two services (Parentline and PSS) were able to answer the telephone as Parentline. This was much less confusing for clients. During 2004 the managers undertook training so that they could offer volunteers the Level 3 certificate in telephone counselling through Community Education and Training. For 2004 and 2005 the organisation received an Early Intervention Award. In 2005 the management structure changed to one of having one manager only, rather than a job share. As well the two financial streams were consolidated into a three year contract. The workers continued to run projects for various groups, put effort into networking and contributing to community activities. The Management Committee and the Manager paid visits to members of the Legislative Council, and to the Department of Education and Family Services. The organisation ran at full capacity, with 3645 client contacts during the 2004-2005 financial year. At the end of this year the official title of the whole organisation changed to Parentline ACT Inc.