WCS History

The history of the Woden Community Service is a history of the demography of Woden and a history of changing Government attitudes to welfare and community services.

In the beginning, the population was mainly young - young families with babies who needed companionship, knowledge and playgroups. As these grew older, the needs extended to school-aged children with needs for care after school and in the holidays. There was a big influx of refugees into the ACT; these people had very specific support needs and there was a need to help them integrate into the community.

Women began to work more outside the home so longer hours of child care were needed. And the population began to age. Young people who had left school were growing in number and there were older people with medical, transport and companionship needs.

To all these groups the Service responded with appropriate programs and it continues to be alert to changes, to evaluate the kinds of programs it offers and to ensure that they are both appropriate and of a high quality. And especially, it works to maintain the philosophy of being a non-judgemental group dedicated to equity, to inclusion and to supporting people to grow independent of the need for many of the services.

The Government policies have moved from being totally supportive in attitude, with an almost volunteer attitude itself, to providing money so that community services could take over programs previously provided by the Government eg. Occasional Care.

At first the community services were trusted to identify needs whose provision was then funded. Increasingly, this was seen as insufficiently accountable and there was a move towards the Government stating what it wanted and different groups tendering to provide the services. Still, they continued to be managed by the communities with comparatively little interference.

The biggest change came when the non-profit Regional Community Services were expected to run as businesses, not only to make money to support themselves by fund raising, a long established practice, but to be seen as money-producing ventures describing their work in terms of output and outcomes, having a business plan and a mission statement as a company would have.

Small organizations, close to the people of their area and therefore sensitive to their needs, were no longer seen as efficient (though probably effective) and there was a pressure for large organizations, working across areas and mergers of the services were encouraged.

Woden Community Service responded to these expectations as far as possible while preserving its integrity. One might see it as a Service for its time, and a credit to all those who have been associated with it.

Taken from the publication 'Woden Community Service, 35 Years On'