Lotterywest and Parkerville Children and Youth Care have a long history of partnership. In fact, Parkerville Children’s Home, as it was originally called, was one of the very first Lotteries Commission (now Lotterywest) grant recipients, receiving £200 in March 1933 following the Commission’s first lottery draw. Since then, Lotterywest has supported Parkerville Children and Youth Care continuously, providing grants totalling more than $8 million.
Parkerville Children and Youth Care provides support to some of the most vulnerable people in our community. Parkerville assesses and cares for children suffering trauma from mental, physical and sexual abuse. They are also advocates for children and their families, and work with the community to raise awareness in an effort to prevent abuse.
Lotterywest is proud to partner with organisations like Parkerville Children and Youth Care to bring innovative ideas forward to build a better Western Australia.
Parkerville approached Lotterywest with a concept that was practiced in the U.S. to improve the healing experience of abused children that was yet to be applied in Australia. This would see children able to access treatment in one place, with the shared facility incorporating a multi-disciplinary team of doctors, police, social workers, psychologists and therapy staff.
With a $1.4 million Lotterywest grant, the George Jones Child Advocacy Centre in Armadale opened in 2011.
The Centre means a child can focus on healing in an environment that is specifically designed for them. With a coordinated team, the child does not have to retell and relive their traumatic experience multiple times to fragmented agencies or be shuttled (if they have access to transport) across the metro area from appointment to appointment.
To date, the George Jones Child Advocacy Centre has provided services to over 15,000 children with 3,000 of those being forensic in nature.
The George Jones Child Advocacy Centre went on to be defined in a research evaluation as “international best practice”, “theoretically sound” and “more child-focussed” which provided Parkerville Children and Youth Care with the platform and encouragement to open another.
In April 2018, a Lotterywest grant of $4.5 million was approved to towards construction and fit out costs for a second Child Advocacy Centre, this one in Midland.
We were honoured to have Parkerville CEO Basil Hanna speak at the Lotterywest Retailer Conference in August 2018. Strengthening the connection and understanding of our grants to our players is essential to our sustainability, and our retailers play such an important role in this.
It was hard to find a dry eye in the room after Mr Hanna’s presentation which revealed that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys under the age of 18 in Australia experience abuse.
“We are extremely proud of our association with Lotterywest and the continued support they have given to our services, not just over the course of a few years but for decades,” said Mr Hanna.
“They [Lotterywest] are an integral part of the Western Australian community.”
“The Child Advocacy Centre in Midland, the Stan & Jean Perron Child Advocacy Centre, will be five times the size of the existing advocacy centre, enabling us to provide much needed services to the community than ever before.”
If you or someone you know would like more information on the services offered at Parkerville Children and Youth Care, please visit www.parkerville.org.au or call (08) 9290 1200.
Do you want to continue to see grants provided to organisations like Parkerville Children and Youth Care? Keep playing Lotterywest games and supporting your local retailer, because the majority of the money you spend on tickets is going back to the people of WA through prizes and grants.
