History of Home Visiting Service
In 1987 the St Peters Sydenham Tempe Neighbourhood Centre Inc was funded by the NSW Department of Community Services through the Home and Community Care (HACC) program to start a pilot project for people from a non-English speaking background in Marrickville municipality. The funding was to employ a part-time coordinator and to provide 40 hours of service to people within the HACC target group. The project was named Multicultural Home Visiting Service and commenced in October 1988.

Extensive research and consultation was undertaken to determine the major language groups in need in the area. Provision of service started in April 1989 to people from Greek, Portuguese, Arabic and Italian background.

In 1991 funding was increased to extend the service to people with dementia and their carers. The service name changed to Marrickville Home Visiting and Dementia Support Service. At this
stage additional visiting staff were employed and the service became available in 12 languages.

The service is language specific and flexible to meet the needs of clients. On behalf of other
organizations visiting services have been temporarily extended to Leichhardt, Canterbury, South
Sydney and even Waverly.

In October 1998, after 10 years operation, the service was separately incorporated as Multicultural Home Respite Inc and the office relocated to St.Peters Public School.

The members of the founding Management Committee were: Sandra Cosgrove (President), Natalka Burke (Vice-president), Angelo Porcu (Secretary), Andrew Clinton (Treasurer), Janet Pearson, Grace Lee and Wilhelmina van Dorp. Other founding members of the association were: Virginia Abalos (Coordinator), Kathy Brown, Ross Daddo and George Habib.

The service continues to provide multi-lingual visitors to housebound frail aged, people with physical and mental disabilities, people with dementia and their careers (HACC target group).

Prior to, and dependent on separate incorporation, the service was endorsed as a Public Benevolent Institution by the Australian Taxation Office. At the same time a significant donation from the Aged Peoples Welfare Foundation enabled the purchase of a 12 seater bus to facilitate support groups for carers and outings for clients. In 2001 the bus was replaced by a new motor vehicle to facilitate staff
access to inner city residents. A donation from the Lend Lease Foundation
has enabled this website, the newsletters and other promotional material.

The organisation sponsors three language specific support groups for carers, which meet monthly, usually at St.Peters Town Hall: