Yacaaba Centre is holding a special fundraising event on October 29 to keep its counselling services running until the end of the year.
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Yacaaba had received funding from NSW Health under mental health services for the past two years, but this financial year it was not renewed among a raft of cutbacks.
The service was able to keep its doors open five days a week after Member for Port Stephens Kate Washington was able to secure $50,000 at the last minute, but Yacaaba manager Louise Simmons said that money runs out on November 4.
They have set a $25,000 target for the fund raising event at Soliders Point Bowling Club and are calling for people to support the day and donations to help their efforts.
"We really need a long term solution, but at the moment we are just trying to keep our doors open," Ms Simpson said.
Ms Simpson said the NSW Health funding accounted for 44 per cent of funding for their services.
They also receive funding under the Department of Community and Justice which is under specialist homelessness services assisting people in finding emergency and permanent accommodation and other associated service.
"Primarily our main service is a counselling service, but we are a registered charity as well and we do client welfare such as food hampers. That's all reliant on community donations. We don't get any funding for that," Ms Simpson said.
"About 82 per cent of our funding goes directly on wages which is extremely highly, normally it would be about 70 per cent.
"But the demand for our services is extremely high and we can't get around that at the moment without shutting a day and having to turn people around.
"Since 2019 there has been a 315 per cent increase in the number of people presenting for mental health.
"We were never funded for mental health until those two rounds of NSW government funding, but what we found during COVID is that we were getting a lot of people coming to the service outside of our community justice funding that were seeking mental health support.
"There are no other mental health services in this area and it's been acknowledged but we still haven't been able to secure any more funding.
"People will be referred to Raymond Terrace or Newcastle and we know that a lot of people will not reach out if they have to travel.
"Forty per cent of our referrals last financial year were from GPs or other health professionals. There is a huge need. We works on a 'no wrong' door policy, we try to help everyone who comes through our door.
"We are trying to keep our services open for the five days . We know the demand is not going away."
Ms Simpson said Yacaaba had been running about for 34 years, initially starting as a women's only centre but expanding to a community centre that caters for men, women and normally children.
"Our child counsellor retired earlier this year and we haven't replaced them," she said. "We have six staff all of us part-time, we had to let one go in the last two months because of funding."
The fund raising kicked off with a $5000 donation from the Shoal Bay Pharmacy.
Tickets to the fund raiser are $60 and include a two-course meal. Anyone who can help with prizes or donations can contact Yacaaba Centre on 4984 2176