Berry St + CFA Very Special Kids - 11/5/2023 Gallery

Our speaker last week was Andrew McCausland from Berry Street. He spoke about the strong partnership that has evolved between our club and Berry Street in jointly conducting the Berry Street Kids Christmas Party.

He especially thanked our Community Service Director, Karyl McGlinn for her support. Andrew also spoke about the history of Berry Street as it was founded in the 1870's where it was initially opened as an 'asylum' run by the church near the MCG for local abandoned and neglected children in the absence of the child protection system we now take for granted.

Berry Street is now a state-wide organisation with its Western Region office being located in Ballarat since 2011. Berry Street delivers many of the programs previously conducted by Lisa Lodge for the Ballarat community. These include foster care, family and domestic violence services, residential care (for children who are unsafe in their own homes),just to name a few. Another program is the Take Two service where babies are taken into care with the ultimate hope of reuniting them with their mothers. Andrew drew our attention to the fact that 40% of the children under the care of Berry Street have experienced the trauma of family violence with many of these children experiencing mental health challenges.

He emphasised that traumatised children can recover but they need time, support and therapeutic care for their brain to recover. To help the children recover Berry Street runs trauma reform classes in local schools.The children who participate in these classes are some of the children who participate in our Christmas Party as a way to help them and their families. The success of the Party was evident as the children and their families have been asking whether it will be held again this year - clearly it had a positive impact! Andrew was also presented with a cheque from the club for $500 to support the very important activities of Berry Street.