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MacKillop Family Services to deliver new Intensive Therapeutic Care services in NSW

MacKillop Family Services is proud to announce it has been selected to deliver the newly launched Permanency Support Program – Intensive Therapeutic Care (ITC) as part of the Out of Home Care reforms in NSW. These services will be delivered in partnership with Anglicare (NSW South, West and ACT).

The Permanency Support Program has been developed by the NSW Department of Family and Community Services (FACS) to drive the change from ‘placement-based’ services in residential care to a child and family-centred service system that focuses on individual needs.

One of the program’s main components is the Intensive Therapeutic Care (ITC) system reform. The ITC model provides greater therapeutic care to young people requiring the most complex support, allowing them to step down into less intensive placements – such as foster care – as they heal. Children and young people who will be supported by ITC services will be aged between 12 – 17 years and be in the NSW Permanency Support Program.

MacKillop and Anglicare will work with FACS to deliver ITC services in four priority NSW locations – Lismore, Blacktown, Liverpool and Queanbeyan.

The decision to form a partnership with Anglicare not only maximises shared resources but will allow young people to access integrated services across a wide geographical area, in both urban and rural communities. Both MacKillop and Anglicare share a commitment to providing therapeutic, trauma-informed services, supported by the Sanctuary Model as our therapeutic framework. Sanctuary provides us with a shared language and common understanding of trauma, its impact on behaviour and how to respond.

“The new ITC program represents a historic shift in the provision of therapeutic care in NSW,” said MacKillop Family Services CEO, Dr Robyn Miller. “MacKillop and Anglicare have significant experience in creating and sustaining care environments which support healing from the traumatic impact of abuse, neglect and disrupted attachment. We are excited to be working together to provide therapeutic, trauma informed care to children, young people and their families, guided by the Sanctuary Model.

“Through our shared journey implementing the Sanctuary model the relationships between staff of both agencies is already deep,” said Anglicare CEO, Jeremy Halcrow. “We are looking forward to working together in this new collaborative partnership with MacKillop Family Services for the benefit of highly vulnerable children, young people and their families.”

MacKillop is nationally recognised as a leading provider of specialised trauma-informed children’s welfare services.

Anglicare is a highly experienced provider of therapeutic residential care. Founded in Goulburn, Anglicare has a 90 year history providing child welfare and crisis services in the Southern NSW region.

Both agencies are approved Permanency Support Program (PSP) providers offering the full range of Prevention and Permanency services for children, young people and their families.