Interrelate's expanded children's contact service to keep rural kids connected to family

But a Dubbo not-for-profit is stepping up to help rural kids keep connected with both their parents even in the most challenging of relationship breakdowns.

Interrelate has been operating their Children's Contact Centre services in Dubbo for almost two decades and now - with new funding - they're expanding their reach to communities in Bourke, Cobar, Coonamble and beyond.

"The service was established to support the family law court with separations where there is a lot of conflict or where it's been a long time since one parent's seen the child," Gavin Rieschieck Children's Contact Service coordinator at Interrelate explains.

"Having children not being able to have contact with one parent can alienate that child and it impacts that child's development and how they experience life, and increase their trauma. It can also make things trickier for the parent that's visiting the child.

"What we do is provide a safe, comfortable place for kids to be able to maintain contact with their parents while things are figured out."

The Children's Contact Centre is mainly used for supervised contact visits but also provides a space to facilitate handovers of children from one parent to the other. Far from a sterile counselling office - the room is filled with books, games and toys to make it a welcoming and joyful environment for children to meet with their parents.

"It's set up with toys and there's an outdoor area with balls and a cubby - it helps temper things a bit. We're a child led service, ultimately we follow what the children need," Mr Rieschieck said.

"Quite often when kids will start off a little bit gingerly but after a couple of visits they'll be racing down the hallway to the room to see their parent."

Mr Rieschieck says, nationwide, children's contact services have suffered from a lack of funding, despite the important role they play in keeping families together. But he said the funding boost is now allowing them to reach more people.

"We've typically serviced out of the Dubbo office but because of this increased funding we've had more of an opportunity to be able to reach out to the broader region," he said.

"We're looking at some outreach options at the moment in Nyngan and Gilgandra and ways we can collaborate with other organisations in Coonamble, Cobar and Bourke.

"We can arrange virtual contact with children anywhere in the state from Dubbo but some people don't have access to technology so that's where the collaboration with these organisations will come in."

As well as the children's contact service, Interrelate runs a Family Relationship Centre, counselling, mediation, separated parents program, Royal Commission counselling, group work and school programs.

"It's just tricky for kids not to be able to have that contact because their identity is so tied up in family, so we're excited to be able to support more people as best as we can," Mr Rieschieck said.

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