The region's only residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation program for families has again been left in funding jeopardy.
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Karralika's family program may have to revert to an adult scheme and children be placed in foster care if there is no new federal government funds announced within six weeks.
The program was overlooked in a federal tender decided late last year, before Social Services Minister Scott Morrison provided a four-month extension to June.
The organisation's chief executive Camilla Rowland said there had been no response to a $367,000 funding request in March for the unique service, which she said had no equivalent within the ACT or southern NSW.
"We are still unclear what the outcome has been with the Department of Social Services exercise where they've been trying to undertake a mapping analysis of what services might be affected by their tender [decisions]," she said.
"It is a critical front-line service, it's an emergency response," she said.
"And it is an early intervention program, because it prevents families from being separated, and if you look at the economic cost it's a minimum of $10,000 a year per child in foster care."
Ms Rowland said the program's drug and alcohol treatment component was funded by ACT Health and the federal Health Department, but the family counselling, court liaison, family restoration work and parenting education was all funded by Social Services.
Mr Morrison said the government was spending $180 million on children and parenting programs nationwide, and was now moving to the new funding arrangements following his department's announcement of the successful community service tenderers in December.
"My first priority is ensuring there are no gaps in critical frontline services while we work through the transition of services to the new funding arrangements," he said.
There was no comment on when Karralika and other organisations who received the bridging funding would be informed of any future financial support.
The 17-bed funded program supported 18 parents and 22 children in the 13 months to the end of March.
Ms Rowland said waiting lists were about three months, up about a month from last financial year.
She said the organisation had been told last week it would receive nearly $100,000 in 2015-16 as part of extra ACT Health funding for the alcohol and drug sector, but this would not replace the funds needed to continue the family program.
