GFSS Programs
Family Support / Case Work / Counseling
- GFSS provides assistance to families in crisis through, advocacy around issues such as housing, emergency food and financial assistance, referrals to medical practitioners etc. We assist with any identified need that may impact on the ability of the family to care and support their children.
- We listen to each person’s story and encourage the sharing of the emotional harm caused by inappropriate or harmful behaviours. The person is gradually introduced to the agency framework over a number of sessions and according to each person’s need and capacity. The transparency of Tomkins’ “Theory of Affect” and Nathanson’s “Compass of Shame” in identifying behaviours and emotions as separate from the person assists those presenting by introducing a “new language”.
The “new language” of emotions and affects assists family members review past responses, identifying the harm resulting, and provides an opportunity to repair same, and to then make informed decisions and respond with improved behaviours in the future. Other family members are engaged with the agreement of the presenting family member, and taken through the “framework” as described above. The introduction of the new language into the family day-to-day life experience provides an improved way to challenge behaviours and improve communication between family members; we call “out of the compass”.
Playgroup
Goulburn Family Support Service provides a supported playgroup to cater for the needs of isolated parents in the care of young children. This playgroup is a result of the co-ordination of services working collaboratively. TAFE NSW provides the venue, a purpose build child care centre; child care students provide structured activities for the session, giving them hands on experience to child and family interaction.
A local club, Goulburn Workers Club provides use of a bus, providing transport for families to access the playgroup and a volunteer bus driver; “Paul” provides his time and skills free to the community. GFSS provides a family worker to provide support to family members accessing the playgroup and to also engage local agencies and services to attend the playgroup to provide information about community services to families.
Parenting Program
The workshop introduces our agency framework “The Tools of Life”, based upon the affect script paradigm of Silvan Tomkins, centering on emotions and affects as precursors of behaviours, both positive and negative. Parents are initially invited to discuss their view of discipline and to define what parenting means to them. This information is then used to discuss parenting from the viewpoint of the parent’s emotional awareness, and subsequent behaviours when relating to children, separating behaviours from the person and the issues from people.
By the end of the workshop parents can concisely describe the “Theory of Affect” and understand that emotions are built from our life experiences of affects (scripts). Parents are introduced to the notion of shame as an affect and the “Compass of Shame” as defined by Nathanson, (1992). The parenting session gives participants a basic understanding of how to behave with improved and informed responses to the challenges faced when disciplining children.
Parents are given the “Tools of Life” to assist with this new learning to further mentor improved responses to the challenges from children from within a supportive but firm discipline model.
Interagency Programs
GFSS forms part of the network of services that assist families in the area. We contribute to the other programs that assist and strengthen the family unit build resilience and self management. We work, for example, with the Local Schools as Communities program, an initiative of the Families NSW strategy, which provides assistance and community development initiatives to assist families work with their community, a “social inclusion project”.