Saving a vital service

e Pāpāmoa community is banding together to nd a way to keep the Pāpāmoa Family Services operating following news of its imminent closure in seven weeks.

“Anglican Care Waiapu have advised that they intend to cease operating in Pāpāmoa as at Friday, September 22, 2023,” says Pāpāmoa Neighbourhood Support coordinator Bruce Banks.

Pāpāmoa Family Services has been a service provider to the community for 30 years, with ACW running the service out of the Hartford Ave site since 2010 when it took over the Pāpāmoa East Community Support Centre in Domain Rd in 2002.

“It is imperative that our community retains these services so a huge amount of work needs to be done quickly to make sure that the amazing good work can continue,” says Bruce.

ACW CEO Lucy Laitinen says the decision to close Pāpāmoa Family Services was “really tough” and “is indeed signi cant news for the community”.

ACW is the social services organisation of the Anglican Diocese of Waiapu, delivering a range of social services throughout BOP, Eastland and Hawke’s Bay. “We recently reviewed Pāpāmoa Family Services, including its service delivery model, funding contracts, the client group, resourcing needs, income streams, and other services available for the clients in the region,” says Lucy. “Although we have for some time now deliberately run the service at a signi cant operating de cit to ensure its continuation, we’ve now made the decision to close the service and concentrate on other services and programmes in the region.”

Lucy says this is no re ection on the quality of services that have been provided by Pāpāmoa sta and volunteers but more a recognition of the limited reach and scale of the service as it currently stands.

“In fact our sta and volunteers have delivered above and beyond through their commitment to and passion for the community.” e land Pāpāmoa Family Services is on belongs to Tauranga City Council; the buildings belong to ACW.

“We’re currently working with TCC regarding the future of the Hartford Rd site,” says Lucy.

“ACW has invested signi cant funds into maintenance and improvement of the site in recent years and, like council, want to see the site well used to support the community.”

TCC community services general manager Barbara Dempsey says council was noti ed of the closure last week and has no plans at this time for using the land.

Barbara says there’s potential for leasing the land to a new entity that may form to provide a similar or the same services currently provided.

Tina Dixon and Chris Bertram from PFS met with Bruce and SociaLink sta on Tuesday to discuss the formation of a new entity. “We want the doors to open as usual,” says Bruce. “We’ll be investigating whether there’s any possibility to be able to use the same buildings and land, so will be talking with ACW and TCC about that. I’m reasonably con dent we can form a proposal to open a centre, if we’re able to use the same site. e rst step is to form a steering group and get likeminded people on board.” To o er skills or expertise, email: communityofpap@gmail.com”