A Sticky Beak Tour of SSI

Sticky Beak Tour participants.

The tour was made up of 17 staff members of Child & Family agencies located around the areas of Burwood, Ashfield, Strathfield and Canada Bay. Touring on a bus, participants visited four organisations that provide community services for 30 minutes at each one. At each location, the Sticky Beak Tour participants received an introduction from key members of staff and a brief overview of the services or programs that the organisation provides.

Tracey Sweetman, Families NSW Coordinator at Burwood Council, explained that the initiative began after a need for more collaboration between local childhood and family agencies was asked for by people working in the sector.

“This is an opportunity for service providers to build relationships with other community services and sites in the Inner West area and see where they are situated, as well as an opportunity to meet the staff and hear what work they do,” Ms Sweetman said.  

SSI Chief Operating Officer Astrid Perry welcomed the Sticky Beak Tour at head office, where she gave a thorough overview of SSI’s work in a variety of areas. Given the nature of the staff present at the meeting, Ms Perry focused on the Multicultural Foster Care Service, a specialist out-of-home care service for children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, aged 0-18 years.

“As a service directed at people from CALD backgrounds, Multicultural Foster Care Service always tries to place children in families who they share culture and language with, when possible,” Ms Perry said. “With 80 percent of kids now living with families of their own community, we can consider the program to be a success.”

Ebdallah Amid, Ability Links Metro South East coordinator, emphasised the importance of strengthening relationships between services providers.

“For us, this visit is very important as it helps establishing and keeping connections with a variety of service providers that ours linkers will utilise to empower AL participants,” he said.