IN a first for NSW Police, a former police station is being donated to a community group.
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The Culburra Beach Police Station, which opened in 1988, is being replaced with a new, expanded, modular, purpose built facility.
The current station, a demountable building, is being moved to the Cullunghutti Aboriginal Child and Family Centre at Nowra, to be used as a permanent home for the centre's occupational therapy and speech pathology programs.
At present, Cullunghutti's therapy programs use a shared community room with other groups within the centre, meaning equipment has to be put in place and then removed before and after each session.
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The new room, which will be placed at Cullunghutti's location in Holloway Road on Wednesday, will be used to provide a dedicated facility.
Cullunghutti CEO Tara Leslie described the donation as "amazing".
"We moved into therapy services over 12 months ago and we just didn't have the space to provide a dedicated area for it," she said.
"This is an exciting opportunity. Having the building donated to our service and community will allow for a designated therapy service, both occupational and speech, to be available five days a week, Monday to Friday 9-5."
Ms Leslie said the building would also allow for an expansion of other services.
"This will allow us to provide additional staffing space and also additional space to provide more programs to the Aboriginal children and families in the community," she said.
"The community room where the therapy services were previously held is also used for a number of other activities, like the Koori Culture Club, the women's group and elders group - having a dedicated area for therapy will allow this space to also be utilised for other activities.
"Ultimately it will allow us to provide more programs for the community."
Ms Leslie said early intervention with children was important in closing the gap in Aboriginal early childhood education and care.
"Early intervention is so important to ensure we are giving our children the best start to life, not only for our children and families but our community as well," she said.
"We provide health, education and wellbeing services to the community. We are a one stop shop where we can support the community to be best equipped to go off to big school.
"We are so lucky in the Shoalhaven to be supported by Inspector Ray Stynes and our Aboriginal Community Liaison Officer (ACLO) Viv Sweeny, who are bridging the gap between the Aboriginal community and the local police force."
Through support from Dice Contracting and the Department of Communities and Justice, it is hoped to have the facility up and running in around a month's time.
The new building will come complete with air conditioning, toilets and a kitchen area, which just need to be plumbed in.
South Coast Police District Superintendent Greg Moore said it was a great opportunity to "repurpose the Culburra Police Station".
"The donation came as a result of a meeting late last year where we found out there was the need for the expanding Cullunghutti to provide more facilities and a dedicated therapy room," he said.
"We are upgrading a number of facilities throughout the district and we saw this as a great opportunity to repurpose the building for the good of the community.
"We were already looking at upscaling the Culburra station and with great assistance from officer in charge of Nowra Police Station, Inspector Ray Stynes, who did a wonderful job working through all the red tape, the move has been able to happen.
"It's going to great cause, and it will provide Cullunghutti with a facility which will improve the effectiveness of staff and more kids will get the treatment they need."
It is hoped the new Culburra Beach station will hopefully be fully functioning by mid-June.
Two permanent officers are based at the seaside village, with the building to be expanded to provide three work station areas and a dock and will have the capability to have extra modules connected and added on if needed as the local community expands.
The building, which is similar to the new Tathra Police Station, will be constructed off site and then brought to the location and put in place.
In the interim the officers will operate out of Nowra but will be in the village a number of days a week, operating out of the Nowra command bus.
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