Course will teach skills to raise kids

SOME of Townsville’s worst parents will be taught skills essential to raising children through a pilot program launched to support vulnerable families in North Queensland.

Child Safety, Youth and Women Minister Di Farmer was in Townsville yesterday to announce the start of the Act for Kids’ Functional Family Therapy program.

It aims to keep families together while protecting the needs of children who are often subject to abuse and neglectful starts in life.

“More families than anyone realises just do not have the skills to be good parents and that, too many times, puts our kids at risk,” Ms Farmer said.

“We come into contact, at my department, with over 122,000 children every year.

“That means we can’t just keep fixing the problems at the end after perhaps years of neglect and abuse. We have to be working to see those kids get a decent start in life.”

The State Government has thrown about $1 million for the next three years at the program, which has the potential to help hundreds of children.

Act for Kids CEO Dr Neil Carrington said the organisation already worked with some 280 families each year in North Queensland.

It is one of the most prominent providers of free professional therapy for children who have suffered abuse and support for families at risk.

The new program will see parents educated on what is required to run a family home and raise a child safely.

“It is about providing intensive support to those families in crisis,” Mr Carrington said.

“It is a sad statistic, the number of families and that we do have in crisis.”

Mr Carrington said the Functional Family Therapy program would deal with issues such as drug abuse and neglect as well as simple tasks that many people would consider trivial.

“We all know how tough it is to be a parent and when you’re a parent in a tough situation, it can be very challenging doing some of those things that some people may take for granted … such as budgeting or getting kids ready for school,” he said.

“What this program is designed to do is making sure we get in and work with those families before abuse and neglect starts to occur.”

Functional Family Therapy has proven successful overseas, having been implemented in over 300 communities in the United States and Europe. kids