Presented by Robert Clark MP		www.robertclark.net

Evaluation report on services for parents

Based on an evaluation report entitled Family Support, Early Identification, Intervention and Prevention Services Evaluation Report, April 1999, Victorian families now have a network of help services ranging from telephone information to intensive support.

One service, Parentline, is a 24-hour telephone information, advice and counselling service funded at $2.6 million over two years.

It is staffed by professionals from nursing, psychology and social-work backgrounds. The Statewide Parentline number is 13 22 89.

The service has taken about 15,000 calls since it began last June.

Parentline also refers callers to other regionally based parenting services.

Under the parenting skills initiative, a $6.3-million three-year program of research, resource development and training for professionals is underway at the Victorian Parenting Centre and nine Regional Parenting Resource Services.

The Centre helps train advisers at Parentline and at the local parenting services to provide education support and counselling for parents.

To reach out to adolescents in schools, the Department of Human Services and the Department of Education have joined forces to establish the $5-million School Focused Youth Service.

This Service aims at keeping young students at school and help others return. It will also put students with problems in touch with other community-based services, or buy the needed service for a particular student if it does not exist locally.

Another program, Strengthening Families, will receive $15 million over two years to support families that are under stress but where concerns do not warrant child protection involvement.

Under a separate initiative to help the most vulnerable in the community who may live in families that are under considerable stress, another $11 million has been set aside for High-Risk Infants and High-Risk Adolescents programs.

To help parents in the early phases of parenting, local Maternal and Child Health Centres have also been allocated another $1.4 million a year.

(News Release, Office of the Minister for Youth and Community Services, May 7, 1999)