Beyond Empathy’s National Families and Parenting Strategy is a family and community focused delivery model that aims to:
- Empower family units and communities to take charge of meeting the developmental milestones of their children;
- Support the active and collaborative involvement of whole family units in the holistic development of the child;
- Actively involve parents and family units in determining and achieving health and education outcomes for their children;
- Assist young families to connect with local health, family and child support and education services;
- Assist individual agencies' ability to engage with young families and deliver services to them more effectively;
- Provide opportunities through collaboration and working partnerships to strengthen coordination between local service providers and improve service and referral pathways and engagement with young indigenous families.
The National Families and Parenting Strategy programs work at four levels:
1. With young people in the pre-parenting stage - to promote personal development, develop individual skills, facilitate access to support services, prevent early onset of parenting and provide alternative rites of passage, and promote positive life, education and work-readiness outcomes.
2. With parents and families – to promote parenting skills, support and develop skills to effectively engage in their children’s education and learning development.
3. With support agencies - to develop support service networks, assist agencies to connect with disengaged young people and improve service access and delivery.
4. With communities - to build awareness of participant support needs and encourage community support for local programs to address those needs.
The National Families and Parenting Strategy programs are running in 4 locations around Australia: in NSW in Moree as Mubali, in Bowraville as Ngwarra, and in Armidale; and in Western Australia in Derby.
AWARD
In November 2010 at the 2nd International Arts and Health Conference, BE was awarded the 2010 Arts and Health in Rural and Regional Australia Award for Excellence in recognition of the success achieved by the National Families and Parenting Strategy programs.
For further information about this project, please contact the BE office on 02 6772 0101 or at admin@beyondempathy.org.au
