Our Services
Cessnock Family Support Service provides individual support – with centre based appointments, home visits, or appointments at other mutually suitable venues, as well as information, advocacy and referral to other organisations and services.
And Cessnock Family Support Service conducts evidence-based parenting programs, sometimes in partnership with other organisations. We advertise these programs through our Facebook page, as well as through local schools, early childhood centres and other local services. Registration for these programs is essential.
Call us on 4990 4507 to find out more about our individual supports, when and where the next parenting program will be held, or to make suggestions about other programs.
Some of the programs we often run are below.
123 Magic and Emotion Coaching
Learn how to manage difficult behaviours of children 2-12 years old in the ‘123 Magic’ program
You will learn:
- How to discipline without arguing, yelling or smacking
- How to sort behaviour
- How to handle challenging and testing behaviours
- How to choose your strategy, the ‘three choices’
- How to use emotion coaching to encourage the behaviour you want
- 7 tactics for encouraging desirable behaviour
Learn how to strengthen your relationship with your child, and develop understanding of why this is so important
Bringing Up Great Kids
The ‘Bringing Up Great Kids’ program uses practices like mindfulness and reflection to promote more respectful interactions and encourage the development of a child’s positive self-identity.
You will
- Learn techniques that support thoughtful rather than reactive ways of responding to children
- Learn to establish opportunities for positive relationship exchanges between you and your children
- Explore and reflect on messages received from your own experience of being parented and consider how these messaged may be impacting on your parenting style
Circle of Security
Parenting can be tricky for everyone at one point or another. The Circle of Security provides a roadmap for parents to look beyond their child’s behaviours and understand how to meet the underlying needs being expressed. The Circle of Security focuses on the relationship we have with our children, to give them the emotional security they need.
The Circle of Security is based on decades of university-based research which has confirmed that secure children exhibit increased empathy, greater self-esteem, better relationships with parents and peers, enhanced school readiness, and an increased capacity to handle emotions more effectively when compared with children who are not secure.
You can develop an understanding of how to meet your child’s underlying needs in the ‘Circle of Security’ program.
You will
- Learn how to support your childs ability to successfully manage their emotions
- Enhance the development of child’s self esteem
- Learn how to respond to difficult behaviours in ways that will result in greater resilience
Tuning in to Kids
Emotionally Intelligent Parenting
The ‘Tuning in to Kids’ program offers a range of approaches and strategies for parents to effectively help children to understand and regulate their emotions and develop emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and control your emotions, as well as being able to communicate to others about how you feel. Children with good emotional intelligence often have better emotional, social, and physical functioning, as well as fewer behavioural difficulties.
Tuning in to Kids™ gives parents helpful ways of teaching your child the skills of emotional intelligence. The program teaches you about how you, as a parent, can help your child develop good emotional skills. It teaches parents:
- awareness and regulation of their own emotions
- awareness of their children’s emotions
- to use children’s emotional experiences as an opportunity for closeness and teaching
- skills in assisting children to verbally label and manage their emotions
- skills in assisting children in problem solving
- to guide children’s behaviour with appropriate limits
For more information about when these programs are running, call us on 4990 4507.