Rural telehealth provider awarded social enterprise grant

A Central Queensland rural telehealth provider will register more psychologists and reach more people every week thanks to a Palaszczuk Government Social Enterprise Growth Grant.

Member for Rockhampton Barry O’Rourke said Rural Health Connect has been awarded a $24,000 grant to expand its service.

“This is such an outstanding group that matches people in rural and remote locations with a network of psychologists to provide telehealth sessions,” Mr O’Rourke said.

“These are people that deal with drought, bushfire, floods and isolation on a regular basis, so having the right support available is absolutely critical.

“Social enterprises like this are community assets and I’m proud that the Palaszczuk Government is backing them to grow their operations and goodwill.”

Rural Health Connect Director Megan Gomez said the $24,000 grant would help scale up their operations, with the aim of registering more psychologists on the platform and reaching more people each week.

“Currently we have 80 registered psychologists who conduct several hundred sessions each week,” Ms Gomez said.

“With this grant, we will engage communications and marketing specialists, so we can reach our goal of having 1000 psychologists on the platform who complete thousands of sessions each week.

“We have received grants to support people in bushfire affected areas and now we want to do it on a larger scale.

“Getting some help to spread the word about what we offer and growing the size of our operation will allow us to employ more people in administration and project officer roles, while also having a positive impact on rural people who use our service.”

Minister for Employment and Small Business Di Farmer said 30 organisations have shared in more than $635,000 to grow their operations and goodwill.   

“Social enterprises are businesses that address social, cultural and environmental challenges and invest their profits towards that purpose,” Minister Farmer said.

“We announced our $8 million Social Enterprise Jobs Fund earlier this year to grow the sector and create jobs as part of Queensland’s Economic Recovery Plan.

“Under this Fund, the Growth Grants will support a whole range of projects creating genuine social impact, including recycling clean plastic waste from hospitals and training inmates in graphic design to reduce recidivism.

“Funded organisations can invest in things like new equipment, training or strategic advice and website improvements to scale up or adapt their operations.”

The Palaszczuk Government released the Queensland Social Enterprise Strategy in 2019, designed to build capability and capacity, make connections across the sector and improve market access.

For more information on support available for social enterprises visit the Business Queensland website: https://www.business.qld.gov.au/ or call 1300 369 935. 

ENDS

Media contact:        Ben Brew       0468 839 551