PARTNERSHIPS with the communities it serves will be vital to the ongoing growth of services delivered by the South East’s own resilience-building organisation ac.care, according to its chairman Michael Bleby OAM.
After being recognised in the Australia Day honours with an Order of Australia Medal, he said country-based organisations helped overcome a city-centric focus in service delivery by government and agencies in South Australia.
Since the mid-’90s, he has overseen the diverse “country specialist” grow to employ more than 250 people and expand its presence from its foundation in the Limestone Coast to also deliver services in other regional areas.
“I have lived and worked all my adult life in rural communities and you soon realise volunteering and community service is what makes our country communities function properly,” he said.
“At ac.care, our mission is we want all country people to have a safe home, enough money to live on and strong, positive relationships.”
Last year ac.care found homes with local foster carers for 331 children across its service area, successfully used early intervention services to help 282 people avoid becoming homeless and helped move 906 people from homelessness into stable accommodation.
But Mr Bleby said there was still much more the organisation could do.
“So often we just have to struggle against the ‘toll gate or Gepps Cross syndrome’ and provide a strong non-Adelaide voice,” he said.
“There are special needs in country areas and we have a special understanding of those needs.
“South Australia suffers worse than any state from being city-centric because there is Adelaide with 1.2 million people and the next biggest city is Mount Gambier with 25,000 and there are no large cities in between with a few hundred thousand people, like you see in the other states.
“So when many politicians talk about South Australia they mostly mean Adelaide.”
He said country people knew if help did not come from within their own community, it often did not come at all.
Mr Bleby worked with ac.care founding chief executive Rob Foggo in Mount Gambier from the mid-’90s and continues to guide growth of the organisation alongside current chief executive Shane Maddocks, who was appointed in 2017.
With a background in the forestry sector, Mr Bleby initially settled in Millicent after relocating to the area to oversee replanting of the Mount Burr forest after Ash Wednesday.
He said there were always challenges to respond to and meet people’s needs in country areas, but ac.care’s community, agency and government partnerships along with staff based in the regions continued to deliver results.
The business community has also traditionally supported ac.care, particularly with the Support Homeless People Luncheon, which raised $125,000 at The Barn Palais last year.
“Support from the business community and seeing how people respond to the need with the charity lunch has been amazing,” Mr Bleby said.
“The reason that works is people understand the money raised is used locally, it will not disappear to somewhere else, but will help the homeless and needs we have in our region and country people will always support that notion because we are into self-help.”
