Family Mentoring
& Parenting Support

Our family mentoring and parenting programs support newly arrived families to access key child and family support services and develop new parenting skills.

VICSEG New Futures supports newly arrived families and their children to gain equitable access to mainstream services and systems, while providing parents with new skills and social networks that support their adjustment to raising children in Australia. In each case, our programs are peer-led, meaning that families benefit from connecting to a worker who has navigated similar experiences during their own early settlement in Australia. We offer 1:1 mentoring to families and group-based support to recently arrived parents raising young children.

Current Programs

VICSEG New Futures’ Being a Parent (BaP) program is a peer-led, culturally and linguistically specific response to the challenges often experienced by recently arrived CALD parents raising children in Australia. 

The nine-week program aims to help parents develop positive communication and parenting skills, emotional literacy, and to encourage parents to be mindful of how their words and actions can impact on children’s wellbeing. 

Each intake is focused on a specific cultural and language group, with a trained faciliator from the same background.  

Parents who take part in the program get to make new friends and connections while experiencing a range of other benefits, including:  

  • Increased wellbeing 
  • Improvement in parenting goals, with parents approaching the role from a more proactive standpoint 
  • Decrease in concerns and anxiety surrounding their children 
  • Improved knowledge of positive parenting strategies 
  • A sense of solidarity, knowing they are not alone and that their experiences are often remarkably like others 
  • The opportunity to build supportive networks.  

To find out more, contact Jeanette Hourani at (03) 8554 1181 or jhourani@vicsegnewfutures.org.au 

Our Family Mentoring program operates across the Northern and Western suburbs of Melbourne and provides individual support to newly arrived families facing language barriers, social isolation and challenges in accessing services. Our family mentors speak English as well as a number of other community languages and are able to provide culturally appropriate support by;

  • Connecting parents to early years services, child and family support programs, kindergartens, schools and health care in their local communities
  • Arranging and accompanying parents to specialist appointments.
  • Assisting with kindergarten and school enrolments.
  • Helping families to access crisis supports, including, housing, family violence, material aid, emergency relief and Services Australia social security payments.
  • Providing linkages to education and employment pathways.
  • Financial Literacy education
  • Support and cultural advice to mainstream service providers to increase their cultural competency in working with families from diverse cultural backgrounds around challenging issues.
To find out more contact our Community Programs team