BY BELLA MIDDLETON
Two of Port Stephen's youth mental health services have joined forces to create and open Tilli Place, a centre focusing on accessible youth mental health care in Tanilba Bay.
Tomaree Neighbourhood Centre and Caring for Our Port Stephens Youth (COPSY) opened the centre on Friday, starting a new chapter in their mission to provide free and accessible mental health services for youth aged 12 to 21 across the region.
"We saw gaps in the capability of the Tilligerry Peninsula, specifically that there was no free youth mental health counselling on the Peninsula," said COPSY president Brooke Vitnell.
"We decided to take action and organize for facilities where we could provide free mental health counselling and that the Tomaree Neighbourhood Centre could provide much needed frontline services."
Tilli Place will also provide access to food and payment assistance through the Neighbourhood Centre for clients and their families in need.
The centre is located in shop 4 of the Kooindah shopping centre, with owner and former mayor Bruce Mackenzie offering the space to COPSY rent-free for two years.
"It's so vitally important to ensure that our young people on the port Stephen and the Tilligerry Peninsula have access to these free youth mental health counselling services so that they can move forward with their lives, move forward with hope in their future, move forward to tertiary education or to gain employment going forward,'" said Mrs. Vitnall.
"We're there to assist them on each step of that journey."
