Our partnership with Parkerville grew from local Perth team members motivated by care and compassion to support their work. Even before our Community program was formalised in 2001, people from our Perth office were already getting behind the Parkerville team in practical ways. Taking part in fun runs, community events, helping with fundraisers, and contributing to Easter and Christmas appeals, our people demonstrated their commitment to Parkerville’s cause.

Since Parkerville joined the Mallesons’ DigDeep® workplace giving program in 2003 our staff and partners have donated over $144,000. Announced as our Perth Local Community Partner in 2025, we look forward to continuing to build on our partnership.

Through a range of statewide programs, Parkerville works with children, young people, and families to navigate complex systems and stay connected to family, learning and community. As frontline worker Simone McDonald explains, this involves collaborating with many different organisations and agencies to centre children’s needs. “Agencies, police and the criminal and family courts are all working in isolation,” she says. “We need to be amplifying the voices of children and young people when they're trying to navigate these systems because they have a real lack of control and choice.”

Parkerville also offers leadership and education on trauma-informed practice. As the first organisation in WA to become an accredited Child Safe provider, Parkerville is committed to creating genuine safety for children, through sharing awareness and education with others in their network, as well as their own team.

“We work in different ways to ensure each person at Parkerville a child interacts with is displaying high standards of a trauma-informed approach focused on child safety and cultural safety,” says Simone. “I’ve created what we call protective behaviours training which we’ve delivered to community service professionals as well as WA Police. It means that across the state, when children meet a police officer, social worker, nurse or youth worker, they’re using the same language to reinforce the idea that they have the right to feel safe at all times and if they’re not feeling safe, they can talk with someone about that.”

Working at this network level enables Parkerville to amplify the impact of their knowledge, expertise and care for children at risk of, or who have experienced, abuse. Their partnership with Mallesons contributes additional resources and capacity to their impact and reach. “Our corporate partners are really important because they can have a broad reach,” says Simone. “Mallesons can bring in not only the networks, but resources and ideas of how we can grow and change.”