澳洲弱能兒童協康會
The “Chinese Group Home” started its operation in 1988 at Marrickville with a Residential Service Coordinator in charge of group home administration. CPA administration office was also set up in the same premise. With incessant demands in the office administration, in August 1998, the Management Committee appointed an Executive officer responsible for the administrative work of the Association and the supervision of group home staff. In April 1999, CPA moved its administration office to the Bankstown-Canterbury Migrant Resource Centre at Campsie, and it became the CPA Main Office till now.
From 2000 onward, CPA was very involved in implementing programs and activities tomeet the needs of people with disabilities. The ‘Music Connection Project’ introduced music therapy to the parents and their children and Ms Lilian Kong embarked on ‘Smiling Kids In Action’ that brought in the early intervention activities to young children under five. These projects benefited all involved and initiated the formation of parent support network.
In 2003, CPA made the decision to change its strategy direction: that it would concentrate on providing more programs and activities to service parent members and children with disabilities and the management of Group Home was discontinued.
From 2003 to 2008 CPA had successfully applied grants and funding from various charitable organizations and City Councils undertaking weekend/vacation activities for children with disabilities and their families. In 2005, the Chinese name of CPA had been altered to make it more acceptable by members. In 2006, CPA was financially supported in publishing the handbook on "The Healthcare and Support for Children with Intellectual Disability”.
To secure available financial resources, CPA was grateful for the support from Cr Ernest Wong, his friends, and CPA Service Co-ordinator, Pinkie Leung in its fundraising activities: Fund Raising Dinners in October 2003 and in July 2005; Charity Concert 2006 and All Star Charity Concert 2007 at Sydney Town Hall.
From 2008 onwards, CPA had obtained various kinds of funding to run weekend programs and other recreational/educational activities for the children with disabilities. We also offered mutual support to parents, carers and family members by setting up the parent support networks: “Dad to Dad” for fathers, “Mum to Mum’ for mothers and “SibSpace” for siblings who have brothers/sisters with disabilities. We also ran periodical volunteer training programs for disability service volunteers.
To provide the updated information, in recent years, CPA has consistently published information books for the members, and in the same time, tried to raise the awareness of the public towards the special needs of the people with disabilities and their families.
One of CPA’s mottos is to “Accept our disability, Develop our ability, Uncover our potentiality”. To carry out this mission, CPA has been organizing various art programs, as “the starting point”, to offer to young people with disabilities an opportunity to explore in art forms and music. Their products and artwork were collected and put in art exhibition at various community centres and libraries for appreciation. CPA also complied some of the artworks into an art book “World of Colours”. The musical ability of the CPA KIDz cannot be ignored. CPA also produced a Compact Disc and a DVD which recorded their singing.
CPA’s good work cannot be made possible without the contribution of the parents who are also volunteers. They had accomplished brilliant achievements for themselves as well as for our Association:
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CPA is grateful for the support from various sections of the community and it is our mission to go along with our children with disabilities and their families in achieving their optimal growth, ensuring them enjoy a rich and meaningful life as far as possible!
2014 Charity Partner of City of Sydney Council in Chinese New Year Festival Canterbury Community Group of the Year Award
2013 Publication of Art Book “Our World of Colours”
The Australian Chinese Community Association held a charity walk for CPA and raised $5000 for purchase of furniture for the Chinese Group Home.
Ethnic Child Care Family and Community Services Co-operative Ltd provided accounting
support to the Chinese Group Home.
澳洲弱能兒童協康會
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