New post to help in Huon

A PERMANENT social worker will be based in the Huon Valley for the next three years to help the community recover from the summer’s devastating bushfires.

Advertising to fill the fulltime position, funded by the commonwealth, will begin today.

The social worker would be based across the entire Huon Valley and would assist people who need help personally, financially and professionally following the fires.

Huon Valley Health Centre’s Bastian Seidel, whose practice helped care for evacuees in Huonville during the bushfires, lobbied Prime Minister Scott Morrison for the funding when he visited the region during the crisis.

“When Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten came to visit the evacuation centre the question was asked what does the community need,” Dr Seidel said.

“To get funding to support a full-time social worker position … rather than having the fly-in fly-out ad hoc staff.”

Dr Seidel said it would be a “game changer” for the local community.

“What we need is to really signal to the community that they deserve help and they deserve support,” he said. “As medical practitioners we have regular contact with residents of the Huon Valley so we literally have the finger on the pulse, and people are coming in because they are distressed, because they lost their job, they can’t see a way out.

“Huon Valley residents are a resilient bunch. But that resilience has been tested over and over again and quite a few of us really are at breaking point.

“The whole idea is for the social worker to go out in the community where people are affected rather than expecting people to actually make appointments.”

The position has been funded through the Government’s Primary Health Networks Program.

Seidel