The AGWS Family Relationship Services program is funded by the Commonwealth Government Department of Social Services and includes individual, couple or family counselling, information, education and training around relationship issues, support, advocacy and referral to other specialized services. The Family Relationship Service provides support to vulnerable people in the Greek and broader community, working with young families with children aged 0-12. Programs include counselling, skill development and community education.
Most people at some stage in their lives may be faced with difficulties which can effectively be dealt with by talking to a professional and experienced Counsellor. The Counsellor can assist in providing emotional support and developing strategies and ways of dealing with personal and relationship/family issues.
AGWS has collaborated with Carers Victoria to provide counselling and other services to Greek carers and connect culturally and linguistically diverse seniors to main stream organisations. AGWS has jointly undertaken work in sharing information, and collaboratively working towards the identification of family carers within the Greek community, the recognition of carers by the broader community and the support of individual carers.
Through this collaboration the two agencies have developed resources to support the carers. Information sessions are jointly delivered to the Greek community as well as workshops on carers supports such as “Caring for Yourself”, “Sleep Matters” and “Writers workshops”. As a result of this collaborative approach, caring has been recognized by many culturally and linguistically diverse communities including the Greek, as a legitimate role that many family members and others undertake.
The Greek community in particular, has increased its knowledge around various services that family carers can access. AGWS delivers carers workshops since 2010 in collaboration with Carers Victoria. These two-hour workshops provide information and education on carers services and supports and practical hands-on activities on relaxation, recreation, health and wellbeing. These sessions are very interactive and interesting and allow participants to ask many questions. Participants provide feedback on their issues of insomnia and how this affects their personal relationships, energy levels, tolerance and behaviours. Dealing with anxiety, stress, depression and unresolved family and personal issues some dating back to childhood and migration experience are the main issues expressed. Finances and stress around the breakdown of their children’s relationships as well the conflict within families are some other concerns.
Continued collaboration is required to further strengthen our work with Greek carers. Our partnership with Carers Victoria is a best-practice model where cofacilitating information sessions and workshops for carers in their native language has worked extremely well. This can be replicated in many different culturally and linguistically diverse communities for the strengthening and support of carers.
AGWS in collaboration with Carers Victoria are delivering two FREE workshops to Greek carers on Thursday 6 & 13 August 2015 at 12.15pm at 7 Union Street, Brunswick. For further details and RSVP (essential), please call Adonis Maglis on 9388 9998.