Drug support group wins top award

Doors Wide Open executive manager Lina Pugh said her heart “swelled with pride for Bunbury” when the not-for-profit organisation won the Excellence in Regional and Rural WA Award at the Support Groups Recognition and Good Practice Awards.

The awards night was hosted by Connect Groups at the Parmelia Hilton in Perth earlier this month in recognition of the important role self help and support groups play in intervention, prevention and recovery.

“We were not sure how it happened,” Ms Pugh said.

“We received an email saying we had been nominated and then another email to say we had become a finalist and then an invitation to the awards night.

“That was the nice part about it – somebody else has recognised what we are doing and had gone ahead and done all this for us.”

Doors Wide Open edged ahead of the Wongan Hill Therapy Group for the Statewide title after only being in premises for three months.

“Wongan Hills have been going for five years and they have worked really hard, so it was fantastic to be recognised in that capacity, because they really deserved it too,” she said.

Ms Pugh said she was “thrilled” to represent Bunbury at a State level and thanked the community and her volunteers.

“Julie and I are the spearheads of Doors Wide Open and we have been able to facilitate this sort of change in Bunbury,” she said.

“It has been a community effort and it 100 per cent belongs to Bunbury.”

Ms Pugh attributed the win to “being loud and proud” about the work they are doing in the community and the fact there is “nothing like this anywhere else” at this time.

“We are going from strength to strength and being able to be the people you can come to in a crisis and know you are not going to get any judgement and know that help is going to be there, there and then is really important.”