Push for more funding

By Tania Martin
THE Shire of Yarra Ranges has highlighted the Yarra Junction corridor as an area where residents are at high risk of experiencing social disadvantage, as part of a push to get more State Government funding.
Shire director of social and economic development Alison Cran said there were many areas across the shire, including Yarra Junction, where residents had to travel to access permanent outreach services.
“Residents have to travel a long way to a metropolitan centre for access to family and children’s services,” she said.
Yarra Ranges is one of eight councils who have joined forces with the Victorian Council of Social Services (VCOSS) to lobby the State Government for an increase in funding for social services.
Announcing their intentions last week, the interface councils said they would lobby the Government to help boost social services in Melbourne’s outer east.
Mayors from Yarra Ranges, Wyndham, Whittlesea, Melton, Nillumbik and Mornington Peninsula have raised concerns that residents living in Melbourne’s outskirts face the threat of serious and mounting social problems because of a lack of locally accessible services.
Victorian human services such as family support, mental health, and domestic violence services are currently located in inner and middle suburbs, making them difficult for many Melburnians to access.
Over the next three years, the Interface Councils say they need $32 million to assist 16,000 families through more locally based social services in Melbourne’s outer fringe areas.
Ms Cran said all the council’s involved with Interface are working together to quantify social issues facing residents across all eight municipalities. She said the partnership forged between VCOSS and the Interface Council aimed to bring the issues, regarding the restricted access to social services, to the State Government’s attention and gain further funding. Ms Cran said mayors from all the councils involved attended a launch to announce the Interface Council and VCOSS’ intentions.
She said it sent a unified message that it was time for the State Government to take a look at this serious problem and implement some funding and service solutions for the eight municipalities.