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New counselling service for CALD men
It receives over 3,500 calls a month, but has discovered it hasn't been reaching everyone.
Mensline Australia is a 24-7 telephone counselling service that has been helping Australian men for six years. While it has been providing Australian men, from all over the country, with family and relationship support, information and referrals, the service has discovered that it hasn't been reaching everyone.
After learning that Indigenous and younger men; as well as men from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds haven't been using the service, Mensline decided to launch a new program called the Cultural Xchange project.
This federally funded project will employ nine interns with training in men's telephone counselling to engage more closely with these target groups.
Three Indigenous interns will be based in Darwin and two CALD interns will work from Burnie in Tasmania. The project will also employ a Vietnamese intern to work from Sydney's Cabramatta area and an Arabic intern will be based in Footscray in Melbourne with another Indigenous worker and youth officer.
Mensline Australia manager, Terry Melvin, says that many men, in the past, who need family and relationship support have been missing out because of their age, culture or language.
"By offering national anonymous counselling support for men with relationship difficulties in culturally appropriate waysm we hope to improve the lives of men, their partners and their children," he said.
The 12-month program will initially focus on men aged between 18 and 25; and men with Indigenous, Arabic and Vietnamese backgrounds.
Mensline Australia: 1300 78 99 78
