Community
13 August, 2025
Di retires after 13 years
THE Interagency Expo 2025 brought fresh energy to Cairns’ western suburbs last week as the Manunda Neighbourhood Centre, known as the Birch St Community Hub, hosted its flagship event from its new purpose-built home.
The expo, which has been running for about a decade, was the first major public celebration since the centre reopened in December following a year of relocation.
More than 20 local organisations took part, offering information, services and support to attendees, along with free coffee, a sausage sizzle and guided tours of the two-storey facility.
It also marked the final expo for Uniting Care’s long-serving family support worker Diane Forsyth, who is retiring in September after 13 years.
“Seeing the building finally complete and filled with people again was just perfect,” Ms Forsyth said.
“It’s been a huge journey – from the old weatherboard house to temporary digs on Anderson St and now to this purpose-built space that’s safe, accessible and truly fit for the work we do.”
Ms Forsyth said the new building wasn’t just a milestone for staff, but signalled a broader shift in how local services were rising to meet growing and more complex community needs.
“When I started, I was the only family support worker and our waitlist was about a week. Now there are more of us and we’re still looking at six to eight weeks,” she said. “And that’s not because we’re doing less, it’s because the need has grown so much.”
Among the most pressing concerns Ms Forsyth has seen are school refusal, device dependency and families struggling to manage behavioural or emotional challenges in children.
“There’s been a real rise in complexity. There are more children with diagnoses, more families in distress and a real feeling of being overwhelmed,” she said. “We help parents with strategies, connect them with counsellors and work to hold families together.”
She said services like the Birch St Community Hub, which offered free pantry days, drop-in support, child and adolescent counselling and home visits, were critical in places like Cairns, where options could be limited. “This is a rare model. We can go into people’s homes, build trust, and give them consistent, personal support,” she said. “You don’t really find that in the bigger cities and I think that’s why neighbourhood centres are so important in regional communities.”
Pantry days at the hub continue to see high demand, with around 60 families accessing free food packages each Thursday.
