Child & Family Services - St Vincent de Paul Society QLD
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    Child & Family Services

    Family Services provide practical assistance, and counselling support to make positive changes for Queensland families.

    We believe that all children have the right to live safely and be nurtured and supported to achieve their full potential. We believe that fundamentally all parents want to do the right thing by their children and we are committed to working with children, their families and caregivers to help make this happen.

    Our Child & Family Services work in partnership with the Department of Communities – Child Safety Services, supporting parents to address the underlying issues which have led to the child protection concerns by targeting interventions towards known risk and protective factors.

    Our professional support staff provide practical assistance and counselling, encourage positive changes and link families into sustainable local community supports, thereby ensuring the long term wellbeing of children and their families.

    Our programs offer a range of services to families referred by Child Safety Services, and where possible will work with self-referred family members for support or counselling. These are:

    Assessment services
    A ’stand-alone’ assessment and report to assist Departmental staff in their decision making regarding permanency planning for reunification or foster care will take 4-6 weeks to complete.

    Intensive Home-based Family services
    Qualified Family Intervention Practitioners work with parents in their own homes to address the issues which have led to the child protection concerns. This may be either through a preservation or reunification framework. Clear goals are negotiated and then families are supported to work towards these goals with progress reviewed every 3 months, and the Department is provided with regular update reports to assist in their decision making.

    Child, Family, individual, couple counselling services
    When specific barriers to progress are identified, a counsellor or psychologist can work with parents or children at various points in the case plan. For example, following a child’s removal and placement in foster care, counselling may assist parents to address issues of grief and loss, anger and denial, and explore motivation to make changes consistent with the case plan. As families move closer to reunification counselling may assist parents, children and foster-carers to address challenges relating to returning to the family home after a period of time apart. This counselling service has some capacity to take community or ‘self-referrals’ from individuals, parents and children who are not involved with the Department.

    Feedback about our support

    “My support worker was very helpful to my family – St Vincent de Paul workers are terrific!”

    “Since working with St Vincent de Paul, I got my children back. I manage time better. I’ve learnt family is the most important thing to me.”

    “Working with St Vincent de Paul was brilliant. Throughout the process June became part of the family and the kids absolutely loved her. Overall we found the experience to be very positive.”

    “Working with St Vincent de Paul ….. was a great experience they made me feel that I had back up ….that I was a good parent. The whole experience also left me feeling more empowered and more in control of my situation. This increased control also gave me more confidence in making decisions.”

    “Whilst in the beginning we did not want to work with St Vincent de Paul, the experience turned out to be very positive. We looked forward to our visits and always made a list of questions we had. Susan was our rock and we always felt that anytime we needed help we knew there was someone to pick us up. We found it be absolutely fantastic as it gives families all the help they need during the reunification process.“

    “My experience with St Vincent de Paul was very positive; they were very helpful and gave me a lot of encouragement. St Vincent de Paul also helped link me in with a lot of community resources.”

    Please select a location from the list below
    Beenleigh
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Kingston
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Bayside
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Beaudesert
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Beenleigh
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Browns Plains
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Bundaberg
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Caloundra
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Cleveland
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Gympie
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Ipswich North
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Ipswich South
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Labrador
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Logan Central
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Loganlea
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Maroochydore
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Maryborough
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Mermaid Beach
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Mount Gravatt
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Nerang
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Roma
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Springfield
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Stones Corner
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Toowoomba North
    8:30am-4:30pm
    Toowoomba South
    8:30am-4:30pm