Strengthening families and individuals to build vibrant communities

SHOWCASE PRESENTATION
Upper Murray Family Care

At UMFC we are continuously striving to implement innovative and collaborative practices to ensure the best outcomes for children, young people and their families. We do this by not only ensuring collaboration with our wide rural community networks but by also developing and embedding innovative practices within our organisation that can be easily accessed by our Family Services team to ensure multi-layered specialist interventions are seamlessly wrapped around our clients to ensure they have the right support, when and where they need it most and with the right team of people.

Internal organisation programs and systems we have to support families include the ability to step up and down from Family Services to the more intensive Victorian Family Preservation and Reunification Response Program (VFPRR). The VFPRR Community Connector Practitioners offer an added layer of support to children and young people whose families are engaged with the VFPRR program by offering 1:1 child and youth mentoring support to re-engage with education, support to engage with other services as well as links into the community through our Community Champions.

Community Champions are people within our community groups who are provided support by the VFPRR Community Connector to understand the impacts of trauma on children and young people’s mental health and use of violence. Community Champion workshops are held in partnership with the Man Cave and Flourish Girl to give our Community Champions the skills and strategies to support the children and young people who engage in their club or group to remain engaged and to look beyond their trauma behaviours. By engaging our community members to stand up and offer ongoing support and understanding to our children and young people we are creating ongoing opportunities for sustainable change and long-term positive outcomes.

UMFC also have a unique and innovative program that links families within our VFPRR and Family Services programs to specific child-focused family violence safety interventions. The Family Violence Child Safety team offers a diverse range of programs targeted at community, professional and family level. The Family Violence Child Safety Team work alongside Family Services providers in the region to offer in-home safety planning for children, young people and their families, recovery and attachment work as well as consultation around therapeutic recovery options. The Family Violence Child Safety team have also developed the Family Violence in a Child’s World training which is a six-hour training for Early Years Educators and other professionals who work within the early years space to develop their understanding of the impact of family violence on behaviour and development as well as offering tools and strategies for educators to talk to children who may be experiencing family violence, talk to parents about their concerns and understanding of referral pathways for children and families. This training has also been adapted for Family Services Practitioners as a beginning practice training.

The FVCST run early intervention and prevention programs in conjunction with Maternal Child Health Services in the region for parents participating in the new parent’s groups which is offered by way of a 1-hour workshop around healthy relationships, gender equality and the stressors of having a new baby.

Further preventative and early intervention programs targeted at kindergarten-aged children and their families around gender equality and having conversations often and early are currently in development by the Family Violence Child Safety Team.

While the two fore mentioned programs are unique to UMFC we also offer wrap-around support for our Family Services families through Queer Space Counselling, Financial Counselling, Family Therapy, and Youth Mentors and have the opportunity to have cases reviewed weekly by a multidisciplinary team of senior practitioners, team leaders, clinical leads, psychologists and managers through our complex case panel.

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