Turning the Tide in the Goldfields: Mara Pirni Healing Place– A Regional Response to FDV
Tracks
Room 3: In-Person Only
| Wednesday, November 26, 2025 |
| 10:35 AM - 11:05 AM |
Overview
Tucker Christou, Hope Community Services
Details
Key Learnings from Mara Pirni Healing Place
1. Community-led design is essential. Genuine co-design with local Aboriginal communities builds trust, relevance, and cultural safety.
2. Integrated services deliver stronger outcomes but require constant collaboration and flexibility across partner organisations to truly meet client needs.
3. Cultural safety is not a tick-box — it’s an ongoing commitment to decolonising service delivery, supporting cultural supervision, and embedding respectful, trauma-informed practice every day.
These lessons have shaped how we deliver holistic, client-centered support in Kalgoorlie and offer a blueprint for place-based responses to FDV in regional settings.
Speaker
Mr Tucker Christou
Manager, Services Operations
Hope Community Services
Turning the Tide in the Goldfields: Mara Pirni Healing Place– A Regional Response to FDV
Presentation Overview
In the heart of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Mara Pirni Healing Place is a pioneering Family and Domestic Violence (FDV) One Stop Hub that is reshaping how regional communities respond to domestic and family violence. Operating under HOPE Community Services and in collaboration with local Aboriginal-led organisations and service providers, the hub offers an integrated, culturally safe, and trauma-informed model of care.
This presentation will share the real-world journey of establishing and managing this service in a remote context — from community co-design to cross-sector collaboration. We will explore how Mara Pirni Healing Place brings together wraparound services including legal support, counselling, parenting programs, housing assistance, and cultural healing spaces like yarning circles.
We will also highlight the importance of cultural safety, peer-informed practice, and continuous community feedback in ensuring services are trusted and accessible. Attendees will gain insights into the practical challenges of rural service delivery, key success factors for cross-agency partnerships, and the impact of centering Aboriginal voices in FDV responses.
This session aims to inspire other regions, service providers, and policymakers to embrace place-based, culturally responsive solutions that meet people where they are.
This presentation will share the real-world journey of establishing and managing this service in a remote context — from community co-design to cross-sector collaboration. We will explore how Mara Pirni Healing Place brings together wraparound services including legal support, counselling, parenting programs, housing assistance, and cultural healing spaces like yarning circles.
We will also highlight the importance of cultural safety, peer-informed practice, and continuous community feedback in ensuring services are trusted and accessible. Attendees will gain insights into the practical challenges of rural service delivery, key success factors for cross-agency partnerships, and the impact of centering Aboriginal voices in FDV responses.
This session aims to inspire other regions, service providers, and policymakers to embrace place-based, culturally responsive solutions that meet people where they are.
Biography
Tucker has extensive experience in working with gambling addiction, family domestic violence and abuse, drug and alcohol dependency, offending behaviours, men’s behaviour change group work and individual counselling.
He has led the development and delivery of innovative service models to break the cycle of inequity and violence. This includes men's behaviour change programs, family and community support services and working with young people at risk in out of home care. Collaborating with diverse teams spanning from the Kimberley to the South-West region, Tucker supports the delivery of ethical, trauma-informed, culturally appropriate, and evidence-based services to communities in need.
