Page 4132 - Week 13 - Thursday, 31 October 2013
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The centres provide a range of universal and targeted parenting support programs which are aimed at assisting parents and promoting positive developmental trajectories for children. There are new and exciting programs at the centres that focus on early intervention, such as the pilot program the minister launched last month with a focus on parent-child interaction.
Care and Protection Services are now providing prenatal support services through the three child and family centres. When concerns exist for an unborn baby, the prenatal teams encourage voluntary engagement with the expectant parents to help put supports in place to ensure newborns are well cared for and further intervention is not required by Care and Protection Services in the future.
Caseworkers may become involved if there are issues regarding accommodation, parenting issues, a prior history of involvement with Care and Protection Services, misuse of alcohol and/or drugs, mental health issues or domestic violence.
Following the birth of the child, families are encouraged to engage with ongoing supports, including maternal and child health, and more targeted services such as the mental health support services. Early indications show that this early intervention approach is having positive outcomes for vulnerable families.
Child and family centres offer intensive parenting support. Over time, a range of more complex referrals have been received by the child and family centres requesting intensive parenting advice and support beyond the scope of parenting programs currently on offer, such as best foot forward and the PPP program—the positive parenting program. These referrals, often for very vulnerable families, from Care and Protection Services are entirely suitable but require a different response to other programs offered by the centres.
Those of us that may be attending the Caroline Chisholm school fete tomorrow afternoon will note the opportunity to look at the best foot forward program. The program talks about the four-week parenting course for parents of children aged four to eight years of age, and it is based on a developmental approach to understanding children’s behaviour. Its aims are to foster positive relationships between parents and children to enhance the health and wellbeing of the family as a whole, including strategies for self-care; to provide parents with some positive parenting strategies for creating a safe, engaging and positive home environment; to provide information to parents to assist them to manage their children’s behaviour and set realistic expectations; to provide an opportunity to gain useful information and build on knowledge as well as using problem solving; and to support families’ individual needs and build on parents’ strengths and skills. Parents will be supported in their parenting role through opportunities for reflection and discussion and handouts will be provided during the course.
As mentioned earlier, the minister recently launched a new pilot program called parent-child interaction therapy, or PCIT, at the Tuggeranong child and family centre. This pilot project is being delivered in partnership with the Education and Training Directorate and Marymead and is a therapy program being delivered to children—and
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