Shortly before Dunedin Catholic Social Services director Mike Tonks steps down from his role, the new Family Support Centre will open to welcome staff and clients.
After a year and a half, with some hiccups along the way, the $1.4 million facility, built on land owned by the Sisters of Mercy (Nga Whaea Atawhi o Aotearoa), will be opened on December 15. The Sisters of Mercy leased the land on 25 Broughton Street to CSS for a very small amount, to support CSS’s work.
Mike Tonks
“It’s a very cool building. The staff are looking forward to having a place so they don’t have to sit in the hallway to do their work, or find that, if somebody left the room for the moment, someone else will jump into it,” Mr Tonks said.
He said that the new facility will also allow them to offer more counselling services.
“This is going to be incredible in terms of what we will be able to do. It’s a big game-changer for everybody here,” he added.
Mr Tonks, though, will be on a “self-funded sabbatical” with his wife.
“I’ve made a decision to step down from the role and move on. Let somebody else pick up the lead. When I originally took on the role, I said [I’ll serve for] five years. But it’s already seven and a half years,” he said.
“I think I’ve taken this as far as I can, and it’s good to get new leadership. Also, [my wife and I] wanted to have a sabbatical, so we can kind of think, ‘what do I want to do? Is there anything else I can do to help people?’ It’s good to take some time to reflect, and to learn and to consider these important things.”
While having the new centre built is quite an achievement, Mr Tonks said that he considers developing the Game On programme to be his key contribution to CSS and to the community.
Game On is a group for fathers to talk with other men about being a dad. It is a six-week course that takes a positive look at fathering.
“The support of the community behind that was amazing. From some of the responses from the men that attended that course, you can see how that changed their lives, and made things better for them,” he said.
The programme is open to teenage dads, solo fathers, as well as those who share parental duties with the mums.
“And to be now offering Game On in Invercargill, Central Otago and South Canterbury in Christchurch, in Wellington and in Palmerston North, to see those starting to develop is really a great thing,” he said.
Apart from developing this programme, Mr Tonks said that he was happy to be able to grow CSS to move and develop into other areas in the community.
This, he said, was due to an “amazing staff” who “work with the developments around supervised contact, the development around our counselling for children in schools, growing the work that we do with couples, and partnering with Oranga Tamariki”.
Mr Tonks said that an important thing that he learned from his years in CSS is that sustaining a good relationship with key partners is as important as working together with the community.
“We talk about that a lot, but then we just continue focusing on our own thing, thinking we have all the answers,” he said. “Actually, we can do that as a collective. Let’s put the puzzle pieces together, and perhaps we can achieve this thing that we have the potential to achieve.”
Mr Tonks said that Covid and the lockdowns have shifted some things, but not always in a bad way. It allowed them to put some courses online.
The new building will enable CSS to provide more face-to-face courses, with four meeting rooms.
Mr Tonks said that they have raised more than 80 percent of the cost, so they are still open to receiving donations. Those who would like to help can go to their website: https://www.cathsocialservices.org.nz/support-us/
“Anything that we would have to pay back in the long run has an impact on our ability to deliver help,” he said.
Mr Tonks said that the Sisters of Mercy, the CSS community partners, the mana whenua, as well as people from the Pacific community and the Catholic community, will be joining them at the opening.
“Come and celebrate with us. We’ve come this far,” he said.
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