Our History

Doncare officially opened its doors on the 17th of November 1969, with a staff of 22 volunteers.

It was a time when there were many young families moving out from urbanised suburbs closer to Melbourne or from interstate. Problems of isolation and lack of public facilities began to dominate the thoughts of this increasingly urbanised population.

"Perhaps there could be special counselling for the young people."

To identify and determine the needs of these residents, the Interchurch Council of Doncaster and Templestowe organised community consultations with representatives of many organisations.

From the consultations, five ministers from the Church of Christ and the Templestowe Presbyterian Church were delegated with the task of "Providing counselling service" with a trained worker. The service might be a referral service (such as Citizen's Advice Bureau) or it might be to provide decentralised counselling. Voluntary or lay counsellors might be specially trained as assistants.

That was the beginning of the Doncaster Community Care and Counselling Centre Inc. (Doncare) at Westfield Shoppingtown. Doncare moved from Westfield at the beginning of 2007 to its present home in Montgomery Street, East Doncaster.