Women’s Shelter Armidale (WSA) runs a range of small support groups for women & children in various situations.
Child & Parenting Support
… Child Support Services
It can be really tough being a kid in a family that’s having a difficult time. Parents who are struggling sometimes find it hard to be sensitive to the needs of their children. Often kids feel deeply sad about the things that they see happening around them. They can feel overwhelmed with worry about whether their family will be all right. Sometimes it feels as though no one cares, or that they are not good enough to be worth caring for. Sometimes kids feel they are to blame for their families troubles. WSA staff can provide support and counselling for individual children, and groups of children, to help them feel better about themselves and their future. Staff can help children to develop resilience and skills to better cope with the stresses of life.
… Parenting Support Services
Parenting can be a challenging at times, especially when “the chips are down”. The WSA Parenting Support program offers assistance to individual mums to help with parenting difficulties, learn new parenting skills and feel more confident as a mum (see also Support Groups). A Parenting Support worker can help you to develop strategies around…
- The needs of children
- Parental empathy (‘being in your child’s shoes’)
- Appropriate discipline
- Self care for parents
- Child safety
- Healthy nutrition
- Baby health
- Creative play
- Setting up routines
- Access visits
… Child Support Groups
WSA offers several support groups for children (See Child Support Groups page)
- Creative Play Group (0-6 years)
- Child Support Group (7-9 years)
- Child Support Group (10-12 years)
… Childhood Trauma
Children need to be, and to feel, safe and loved in order to develop into strong healthy adults. Some children experience severe neglect, physical or sexual assault or witness this happening to another person. When this happens a child’s physical and psychological health can be harmed in a way that lasts well after the traumatising event has past.
It is important that children get help to deal with traumatic events and WSA staff can provide support and psychological services to help children to heal and to minimise long-term harm.
… Child Protection
To keep children safe, all WSA staff are required, by law, to advise FaCS about children who are at risk of significant harm. This allows children at risk to be monitored and helped until protective changes are introduced.
