Supporting families to navigate tough times: The impact of financial and housing insecurity, isolation and discrimination

Presenters: Kerry Hawkins, Zan Maeder, Emi Artemis and Lydia Trowse

Partner: Emerging Minds

With a steep rise in the cost of living, a growing number of Australian families are having to navigate financial distress, housing insecurity, social isolation and discrimination. These factors have a significant impact on the mental health and wellbeing of children and families. Furthermore, society still tends to blame ‘poor parenting’ or ‘poor decision-making’ rather than the broader social and contextual factors that are play. This dynamic can increase families’ shame and guilt, and cause even more harm.

Supporting families as they navigate these challenges can be complex. This webinar will introduce a new collection of resources from Emerging Minds that you can use in your work with children and families. These resources were produced in collaboration with families and practitioners and aim to amplify child and family voices. Importantly, they outline not only the impact of social determinants of health inequalities on child and family wellbeing, but also what other families with lived and living experience have found useful in navigating these challenges.

The panel will discuss why the project came about, how it was developed, what the resources are and how you can use them.

This webinar will help you:

• understand the impacts of social determinants of health inequalities on child and family health and wellbeing, and the many ways families are responding to these impacts
• better support families impacted by social determinants of health inequalities, including supporting them to reconnect with their existing knowledge, skills and values
• reduce families’ experiences of isolation and stigma that can come from experiencing health inequalities
• gain insight into how you can gather and share ideas from the families you work with to support your practice.

This webinar will interest a range of practitioners in health, social and community services who work with children and families who may be navigating multiple hardships including financial distress, housing insecurity, social isolation and discrimination.

This webinar is co-produced by CFCA and Emerging Minds in a series focusing on children’s mental health. They are working together as part of the Emerging Minds: National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health, which is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care under the National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Program.

REGISTER HERE