About Us

The Caroline Chisholm Society is a charitable organisation, both privately and government funded, and is non-denominational.  The Society offers support to pregnant women and parents with children up to school age.  The Society provides a range of programs for families in need, including counselling, housing, material aid and in home family support.  The families that the Caroline Chisholm Society works with are often bereft of wider social and family supports and are very grateful for the practical, emotional and financial supports the Society can offer. 

The members feel that they are emulating the Society’s namesake, Caroline Chisholm, who was also concerned with the pressures facing women and families.  She provided practical assistance with accommodation, work and protection – as well as politically agitating on behalf of women and their children.

The Society was initially established 1969 by a doctor and a group of volunteers in response to a very real need in the community. Whilst the original focus of services was upon providing material aid and pregnancy counselling services, the Society began working in the area of in home family support in 1979.

The current services of the Society include:

• Family Support Program, (in home support, counselling, casework, case management, community linkages)
• Groupwork (parenting, post natal depression, family violence)
• Telephone Counselling and Referral
• Pregnancy testing and options counselling
• Pregnancy Support
• Pregnancy Loss counselling
• Material Aid
• Transitional Housing Program (SAAP)
• Volunteer Program

The target group for these services is women who are pregnant or families with a child under school age. The service outreaches to families with a variety of complex issues including family violence, child abuse and neglect, psychiatric, physical and intellectual disabilities, substance abuse, cross cultural issues, parenting issues, developmental delay, financial and legal issues.

Whilst material aid and telephone counselling are available statewide, most services are provided to families living in the North Western corridor of Melbourne. In addition, families from the Grampians Region are provided a service at our office in Bacchus Marsh. The Shepparton Branch of Caroline Chisholm offers pregnancy counselling, early parenting support, and a material aid program.