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Family & Peer Support

Family Support

Family members are very important to the well-being of young people. In most cases, the family can contribute a lot to the care of the young person, providing support and assisting their recovery. However, families don't have to do this alone - help is available.

 

Family programs are designed for parents, partners, children, siblings, extended family, close friends and anyone who carries out a care-giving function in the young person's life.

 

While all EPPIC CCT team members are able to provide focused support to the families and carers of clients on their respective case lists, EPPIC CCT can also draw on the expertise of specialist in-house family therapists, when targetted, specialised family support is required. The emphasis of the family work program is to highlight the special needs of families where one of their members experiences a psychotic episode. A range of specialist family services can be provided to address these needs, including:

  • Individual family sessions to discuss issues of concern
  • ‘Family and Friends Information Sessions’, to help family and friends understand mental illness, provide psychoeducation and information about recovery from a first episode of psychosis
  • The TREAT family group when a young person is having a protracted recovery*
  • Family Peer Support Groups

*For more information about TREAT see Intervention: Recovery Care

 

Families helping families

Families new to EPPIC can talk with a peer family support worker. This is always a father or mother who has had a family member use EPPIC services, and has also had training in providing family support. Phone calls to offer support are made as soon as the details of the primary family or carer are known. They are very reassuring to new families or carers who can have their questions answered by people who have had firsthand experience of providing support to a young person with a mental illness.

 

Family peer support groups

Joining a peer support group encourages families to talk openly and freely in an understanding environment; learn from others who are in similar situations; learn how to ask for assistance and to access services; develop friendships to overcome any sense of isolation; and receive emotional support.

 

Family Resource Room

The resource room at Orygen's Poplar Road site has a selection of books, pamphlets, brochures, DVDs, videos, audiotapes and CD Roms on a range of relevant topics. Families and friends are encouraged to drop in to the resource room. Family peer support workers offer telephone and face-to-face support and information based on their own experiences of having a relative with a mental illness.

 

For more information

Contact the Family Support Worker on 03 9342 2800, or call in to the family resource room, which is located near front reception at Orygen’s Parkville site.

 

 

Youth Participation Program

 

This program encompasses a range of initiatives that allow young people to advocate for themselves and their peers. Youth participation makes the service more responsive to young people while providing them with the opportunity to develop real skills in advocacy and decision-making. Participation can also have a profound effect on health and wellbeing, empowering young people to talk about their experiences and work towards change on behalf of themselves and their peers.  Programs include:

 

The Platform Team:  A group of past and present clients of OYH who meet regularly to talk about the service and what needs to be improved. 

 

Peer Support:  Peer support workers are past clients who visit the Orygen inpatient unit and operate a drop-in service to provide support to other clients.

 

Community Education:  Participants can be involved in educating the wider community about mental health issues by speaking at schools, talking to youth workers and doing media work.

 

Staff Selection:  Participants can be involved in selecting who works at the service though being members of job interview panels. Training and payment is provided.

 

For more information click here for OYH Youth Participation

 

 

Click here for culturally diverse and indigenous clients.