What is family support?
Family support has many faces and comes in many different forms.
To some people it is a “care package” which gives the person a boost of hope and optimism, to others it means the difference between hope and despair or the difference between being hungry and well nourished.
At De Paul house those care packages come under the guise of family support and they include the basic things of life that many of us take for granted such as housing, food, and clothing. Other dimensions of family support we offer are listening, supporting, encouraging, motivating and engaging the necessary skills to help a family from one day to the next.
De Paul House provides food parcels, clothing, furniture, budgeting assistance, parenting skills, open employment pathways, counselling, clinical services, health checks, pre school education, a learning environment for parents and children, school camps and holiday activites, cooking, sewing, exercise and other activities to develop and nurture life skills. We support people through custody and other legal or health issues.
We listen a lot and try to find solutions that will lessen the burden carried by our families so that they can cope as independent well functioning families.
We could not provide all the these “care packages” by ourselves. We network with other agencies and we are helped by a large team of volunteers but without support from the community and agencies such as our local Parishes and St Vincent De Paul Society we would not be able to continue this level of family support.
Our success stories are many. Past residents and families we have helped often visit and keep us updated on their lives and the lives of their children. It is common to hear “I have a full time job now”, “my daughter has just started university”, “without De Paul House I would not have got out of that dark tunnel I was in..” Without our intervention of Family Support we would not be hearing these success stories.
Written By: PeterDate Posted: 3/5/2008Number of Views: 660
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