About Family Inclusion Strategies in the Hunter
We call ourselves FISH for short. We began in 2014 when parents, practitioners and others got together to talk about the need for family inclusion in child protection and out-of-home care. 10 years later and we are a strong parent and family led organisation We deliver peer parent and family advocacy to bring change for children and families.
What is family inclusion?
Family Inclusion is the active and meaningful participation by parents, family and kinship networks in the lives of children. It is a process and lived experience over time. It ensures children’s family relationships are strong and enduring.
If family inclusion was happening then there would be fewer children in out-of-home care, children would be returning home more often and alll children would have strong family relationships with lots of family participation in their lives.
We support and lead in research about family inclusion in child protection.
We are currently partnering in an Australian Research Council Linkage project exploring peer parent and family advocacy in child protection. Keep in touch with us to find out more about this project as it progresses. We have partnered in other research about family inclusion since 2014 including research about the experiences of families in the Hunter Valley, research about the experiences of peer advocates and differing perspectives of family inclusion.
We develop and run workshops for carers, workers, parents and family. All our workshops are solely or co facilitated by parents with lived experience.
We have Facebook and Instagram pages with news, ideas and information for parents and agencies to improve relationships, support children and improve family inclusion.
Anyone can message our peer support workers via Facebook and they can reply or call you.