‘Long-term daycare’: Townsville’s unsung hero Wee Care celebrates 50th

When a couple are hospitalised by a car accident, and they have no family to look after their children, there is one place the hospital calls. Wee Care.

Paula La Rosa from Althea Projects - an overarching welfare group that has grown from Wee Care.

A one-of-its-kind service created by a group of Townsville women after Cyclone Althea ripped apart hundreds of homes is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Wee Care started in a moment of crisis, but its unique way of helping families has proved invaluable and five decades later it is still quietly working away in Railway Estate.

Althea Projects CEO Paula La Rosa said any family, at anytime, could find themselves needing Wee Care.

“We get calls from the Townsville University Hospital because there was a car accident and two adults were brought in, and there are kids that need to be looked after,” Ms La Rosa said.

“Anyone can access Wee Care support, you just never know when you’ll end up in a situation where there is no one you trust to take care of your children.”

Althea Projects CEO Paula La Rosa. Picture: Evan Morgan

One situation which stays in Ms La Rosa’s mind is the case of a single mother who was in the final stages of her life, and Wee Care took her young child on during those last months.

“When she had good weeks she could spend time with them, and on bad weeks the child was looked after,” Ms La Rosa said.

“If she didn’t have that, her child would’ve gone straight into child safety and she would’ve had less time with them.”

The non-profit runs as a ‘long-term daycare’, where staff look after children at a Wee Care house and help them get to and from school.

Ms La Rosa said Wee Care specialises in children aged zero to 12, and is community run, setting it apart from similar government services.

“We are 100 per cent local and we’ve grown from an identified need in our community into a substantial welfare service,” she said.

“There is no other service quite like it in Queensland, we accept referrals from anyone in the community so if they are living on the fringes and need a break, that break is enough to sustain them.”

Over the years, Wee Care has grown to include foster care, a homelessness centre, a community playgroup and a food bank, leading to the creation of an overachiving name ‘Althea Projects’ to describe all the services.

When Cyclone Althea struck Townsville in 1971 the day before Christmas, it ripped apart hundreds of homes and killed at least three people.

Boats washed ashore on Palmer Street during Cyclone Althea, 1971. Source: Townsville City Libraries.

Ms La Rosa said back in those days, when a family suddenly found themselves unable to care for their children, their only option was to surrender them to an orphanage.

“But really, what they actually needed was short-term help so they could get back on their feet,” she said.

Change came in the form of a small group of women, including Kath Gordon, Colleen Hegerty and Joan Innes Reid who were faced with the issue of what to do with children when both of their parents were hospitalised by the cyclone.

Bent powerlines in Townsville during Cyclone Althea

Mrs Innes Reid, a hospital social worker, was quoted saying “children should not become state wards simple because their parents are in hospital or there is a family crisis and there is no-one to look after them.”

Mrs Gordon and Mrs Hegerty managed to rally a group of women who took the children into their own homes until their parents were discharged from hospital.

Paula La Rosa said she was proud of the founding members who rallied to create Wee Care.

“I hope they knew the difference they made to Townsville,” Ms La Rosa said.
“In the last five years, across the whole organisation, we’ve looked after 5000 children and supported 15,000 individuals.”
Currently, Wee Care is funded by the government, but Ms La Rosa has hopes she can increase the amount of community donations Wee Care receives to decrease the service’s reliance on state funds.
“Wee Care is funded for five days a week, but when emergencies come up we need to be seven days a week and we need to find a different stream of revenue to keep doing that,” she said.
“People can become a donor for $10 a month... there is also a charity gala on in September.”
Find out more at altheaprojects.org.au

Originally published as ‘Long-term daycare’: Townsville’s unsung hero Wee Care celebrates 50th