For ChildrenFamily Relationship Services
Overview
There is a wide range of information and services available to help families, whether they are together or separated, to build better relationships. Listed below are the services available:
For further information about these services see our Family relationship brochures and publications page.
Education and Skills Training
These services assist individuals, couples and families to develop skills that foster positive relationships with their partner, children and other family members.
Some of the assistance offered includes promoting positive parenting, developing communication and problem solving skills for individuals and couples throughout the lifecycle, providing relationship education in schools as well as courses for pre-marriage and other key transition points such as becoming a parent.
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Counselling
(includes family therapy)Professional counsellors assist individuals, couples and families, including separating families, to resolve relationship issues that arise at various stages of their relationships.
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Family Dispute Resolution
Family dispute resolution is a process conducted by an independent practitioner or practitioners to assist members of families, including separated families, to resolve some or all of their disputes with each other. Examples of family dispute resolution processes are mediation and conciliation. Family dispute resolution services can help separating families resolve disputes as an alternative to going to court.
Registered family dispute resolution providers may be government-funded organisations (including all Family Relationship Centres) or private practitioners.
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Children’s Contact Services
These services assist the children of separated parents to have contact with and establish and maintain a relationship with their other parent and family members.
The services provide a safe, reliable and neutral place to assist parents with the changeover of children. They also provide supervised contact to assist separated parents to manage contact arrangements, especially where there are concerns about safety.
The Children's Contact Services Program, funded by the Australian Government Attorney-General's Department, has been expanded to offer a total of 65 services across Australia.
List of services under the Children's Contact Services Program
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Parenting Orders Program
Services under the Parenting Orders Program (previously known as the Contact Orders Program) provide assists to separating families in high conflict with parenting arrangements. The Parenting Orders Program uses a variety of child-focused and child inclusive interventions to respond more effectively and flexibly to families' needs and work where possible with all members of the family. It involves a case worker intensively managing parents and getting them to understand the effect their conflict is having on their children.
Family members, including children, can receive a range of services such as counselling, family dispute resolution and group work education as part of this program. High conflict families are referred to these services, giving separated parents an alternative to taking their disputes to court.
The Parenting Orders Program, funded by the Australian Government Attorney-General's Department, has been expanded to offer a total of 20 services across Australia.
List of operational services under the Parenting Orders Program
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Other Family Relationship Services
There are specific services targeted to men, adolescents, humanitarian entrants and to address family violence through early intervention approaches.
These services offer education and skills, counselling, and community development to help families to strengthen parenting and relationship skills.
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Family Relationship Advice Line 1800 050 321
The Family Relationship Advice Line is available from 8 am to 8 pm, Monday to Friday, and 10 am to 4 pm on Saturday (local time), except national public holidays.
The Advice Line is a national telephone service that provides information and referral to services that can help strengthen relationships, overcome relationship difficulties or deal with separation.
The Advice Line can also help people affected by separation to work through the issues that they are facing and decide what to do next.
More information about the Family Relationship Advice Line
Searching for services relevant to your individual needs
Should you wish to search for family relationship services relevant to your individual needs or stage in life, either go to the search page or visit one of the pages listed below: