Through consultation with agencies and residents, the Waterloo Human Services Collaborative has drawn up an action plan to address the current and future needs of the Waterloo community. “While we will still face social challenges locally, the plan should go a long way toward addressing the issues residents have raised,” said Counterpoint Community Services EO Michael Shreenan. “Like all good plans, it will evolve through implementation, with regular review and ongoing community input.”

The 13-page document identifies six priority areas for agencies and community group action: improved safety; improved health and wellbeing; improved communication, consultation and community participation; improved customer service; improved service integration and service accessibility for all service users; and improved responses to systemic issues on an ongoing basis.

“The community rightly expects cohesive, timely, accessible, responsive, respectful, holistic services,” said Shreenan. “These can only be achieved through resident involvement in decision-making, and well-planned, co-designed responses and implementation where everyone works hard to lift their game.” Shreenan added: “For the plan to succeed we need all government and non-government agencies, residents and community groups to become involved.”

A draft document has been circulated to local groups and agencies for feedback. Residents are encouraged to study the plan and take the opportunity to make comments back to participating agencies or directly to the DCJ Secretariat at WaterlooHumanServices@facs.nsw.gov.au. The final plan will be implemented early this year.