Family to Family Workshops

Development and Trial of Family To Family Workshops

The Family to Family (F2F) workshops are quite different to the workforce development workshops as they are being designed to involve the whole family where a parent experiences a mental illness. The pilot project and was funded by Lotterywest. The evalaution of the workshops is very promising and the work continues.

Capacity building partnership Wanslea Family Services and Ruah Perspectives

Wanslea family Services and Ruah Perspectives has been successful in recieving funding form the Commonwealth Department for Families and Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs 'Partners in Respite Project' to train staff in both organisation to be able to facilitate these workshops for the whole family.

What is Family to Family (F2F)?

F2F is a series of workshops for the whole family where a parent experiences a mental illness. It is a partnership between Consumer Consultants, a Family Reference Group, Ruah Inreach, ARAFMI and Wanslea Family Services.

Who can go to the Family to Family workshops?

The workshops have been designed for families with children where one (or both) parents experience mental illness. 'Family' is recognised as those people who support each other to help children thrive and grow - mums, dads, children, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunties, uncles, best friends, partners, cousins, neighbours.

What does Family to Family offer?

The F2F group believes that their families would have managed better, learnt from each other and found better ways of supporting each other if they had been given an opportunity to spend time with each other, exploring how everyone is challenged by the presence of a mental illness.

The workshops run over 6 weeks and topics include:

Understanding mental illness
Relationships
How children experience having a parent with a mental illness
How mental illness may affect parenting
Working out what things are important to you as a family
Developing plans and strategies to support each other
Planning for your family in the short and long term
Information, resources and support networks
Sharing experiences with other children and parents

The workshops will include everyone in the family. For some of the time, children and adults will do activities separately and at other times, families will participate together.

Contact Us

Manager

Carol Clark
Phone: 08 92080505

Fax: 08 9443 9015

PO Box 584, Mt Hawthorn, 6915
Email: carolclark@ruah.com.au