Practice
Profile
Strength To Strength (STS) – a family relationships program for humanitarian entrant families living in Western metropolitan Sydney
Contact details
Agency: Relationships Australia NSW – Humanitarian Entrants Program
Address:
Suite 102, 18-20 Ross Street
North Parramatta NSW 2151
Contact:
David Allan
Manager
Email: davida@ransw.org.au
Patrick Baffoun
Project Co-ordinator
Email: patrickb@ransw.org.au
Phone: (02) 9890 1500
Fax: (02) 9890 1170
Website: www.relationships.com.au
Funding source
Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) under the Family Relationship Services Program (FRSP)Program duration and frequency
STS assists humanitarian entrant families around relationships through a variety of interventions ranging from workshops to intensive family therapy.
Clients’ involvement with STS can vary in four ways:
- Firstly, it may simply be that a client approaches the service and is referred to more appropriate sources of assistance such as, say, Centrelink;
- Alternatively, a client may need to access another service such as STARTTS and the STS worker then ‘bridges’ the client(s) to that service by actively connecting them and then ensuring that the referral proceeds. This may involve a number of phone calls to the client and the referral point and, in some cases, the STS worker may go with the client. The STS worker may then terminate involvement;
- Thirdly, the STS worker may decide that the best way of servicing a client(s) is to pick up the case and that the STS worker sees the client(s) ongoingly. This may involve seeing an individual or couple or family for therapy. These sessions may take, on average, 60 minuntes and their frequency may vary from an average of six sessions to open ended support that may last many months and
- Finally, the STS worker may decide that the best way of servicing a client is to ‘bridge’ the clients to other specialist services such as family therapy, couple therapy and psychiatric services without terminating. This form of ‘bridging’ entails: introducing the client(s) to the notion of therapy; then setting up appointments with therapists with whom the STS is confident; then organising (and often taking) client(s) to therapy sessions; discussing the case with the respective therapist; sitting in on the session; debriefing with the therapist after the session; debriefing the client(s) after the session; ensuring client(s) attend future sessions. The use of interpreters greatly increases the duration of the sessions which may take, on average, 2 hours but there is also a lot of outside work around the sessions that may take up more time than the actual sessions themselves. The number of these sorts of sessions may vary from an average of 6 sessions to ongoing work that may last many months.
Program description
Humanitarian entrants who settle in Australia experience a range of pressures, such as poor English language proficiency, lack of information and life skills within the Australian context and loss of traditional family support structures. These are often compounded by their past traumatic experiences and limited formal education; learning a new way of life while sustaining one’s beliefs can be hard. This often causes stress for these families and problems can emerge around areas ranging from couple relationships to parenting.
Strength To Strength [STS] aims to assist humanitarian entrant families deal with these relationship problems in two critical ways.
Firstly, STS employs bilingual, bicultural workers who are able to link with these families in their own cultural context and so they have a better chance of engaging engage them around addressing problems. The largest number of humanitarian entrants in the Auburn Blacktown areas is from Middle Eastern and African countries; the STS team has speakers fluent in: Arabic, Farsi, Dari, Dinka and Swahili.
Secondly, the work of STS team is overseen by Relationships Australia [RA]. In consultation with its two Migrant Resource Centre partners RA sets the focus of the program and provides clinical governance, supervision and training.
Thus, there is a two-pronged approach that, firstly, aims to effectively engage these families while, secondly, ensuring the service maintains a high clinical standard.
STS is delivered through a partnership of three organisations: Relationships Australia, Baulkham Hills Holroyd Parramatta Migrant Resource Centre and Auburn Migrant Resource Centre. STS employs bilingual, bicultural workers through the respective Migrant Resource Centres. The program is co-ordinated through Relationships Australia which also assumes responsibility for the clinical aspects and training of the STS workers.
Services provide family and couple therapy sessions about parenting and changing roles in the family; workshops about relationships after migration and across cultures; support groups about child discipline, conflict resolution and effective communication. Services help guide and teach family members about parenting in a new culture and address the challenges young people may experience growing up in Australia and living between two cultures.
Outcomes for clients include:
- increased parenting confidence and better outcomes for parents in managing problems with their children such as: truanting, violent behaviour, substance abuse, running away, depression and self harm
- improved relationships between parents and children and a mitigation of the effects of migration and resettlement on these relationships
- for youngsters, increased self-esteem and a sense of belonging and, for parents, reduced isolation and expanded social networks
- increased safety for family members in terms of domestic violence and other forms of abuse
Geographical Area
- Urban
Target Group
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Is the program/practice based on the findings from empirical research, theory and/or a particular framework/model?
Yes(a) Briefly explain the research and/or framework/model
The model of locating bicultural, bilingual workers at Migrant Resource Centres with external support from an agency with clinical expertise such as Relationships Australia [RA] developed from experience with previous CaLD projects delivered by RA. The model is evolving through action research whereby workers at RA and STS regularly review and alter the model. This is now occurring in consultation with the UNSW Centre for Refugee Research.
A particularly useful reference is, Ethnicity & Family Therapy, 2005. eds., Monica McGoldrick, Joe Giorano, Nydia Garcia-Preto, The Guilford Press, New York.
(b) In what way(s) does this research and/or framework/model influence or inform the intended outcomes & objectives of the program/practice?
As a result of the consultation with the UNSW Centre for Refugee Research there is now an awareness of hidden areas of trauma that exist in this population, such as, for instance, an awareness that most humanitarian entrant women (between 80% and 100%) have been the victims of rape and the shame associated with this mitigates against disclosure and dealing with the effects of it.Has the program/practice been the subject of evaluation?
Yes
(a) What is the type of evaluation?
Internal
(b) What instruments were relied on to evaluate the program/practice?
Written evaluations following attendance
(c) Briefly describe the outcomes of the evaluation:
Relationships Australia [RA] routinely seeks written evaluations from clients that are able to be returned by mail, however, it has become apparent that this form of feedback does not work at all for clients from CaLD backgrounds and, as a consequence, an alternative, reliable method needs to be developed by RA.
What gaps in research and practice models/frameworks did you find in developing your program/practice?
Conventional family therapy models do not adequately take account of cultural constraints around counselling and expectations of how an ‘expert’ should operate.
Addressing the patriarchal values of some ethnic groups remains a difficult area around which there are gaps in assisting both women and, especially, men.