Georgia-Rose completed her internship at Ngala, an organisation that supports parents and young children with a range of services and programs, including family support, home visits, child care services and parenting programs.
Georgia-Rose worked on Ngala’s Indigenous Parenting Program ‘Ngalang Moort Ngalang Kurlangah’ (Our Family, Our Children) (NMNK) developing a local guide of culturally appropriate community support services for families in the City of Swan. The guide will be used by Ngala staff to connect families with the support services they need. Georgia-Rose also worked directly with families by assisting in the delivery of NMNK programs and helped promote Ngala at various events during NAIDOC week.
Ngala were so impressed with the outcome of the guide that they plan to create local guides for other local communities.
“I think there is a huge need for greater support for families and children in the community, especially in a culturally appropriate manner within the Indigenous community, and a resource like this helps makes accessing services easier,” says Georgia-Rose.
Working within a community-focused organisation increased Georgia-Rose’s desire to be an active member of the community, and she has accepted an offer from Ngala to stay on with the organisation.
“The internship experience has developed my passion for serving others and strengthened my desire for a career with Indigenous children and youth.”
“It has helped me to understand the importance of not only saying that I respect and celebrate Indigenous culture, but to actively contribute the community’s wellbeing by working directly with the community.”
Wendy Simpson, Research Officer at Ngala believes that the internship program benefits the organisation as much as the students.
“As a not-for-profit organisation, we recognised the specialised skills the McCusker Centre interns have can benefit Ngala considerably. The work they have done has helped parents directly.”
“It’s very exciting for Ngala to be continually involved with the McCusker Centre and that’s due to the quality of the students,” says Wendy.