National Families Week 2024
National Families Week is an Australian celebration that coincides with the International Day of Families (15 May). This year’s theme is Celebrating Family Diversity and Connections. Essentially, this theme recognises and celebrates the different types of families in Australia and the qualities that make them special.
Anglicare Southern Queensland is committed to supporting families and family wellbeing through a range of programs, including our Foster and Kinship Care program. For more than 30 years, we’ve supported foster and kinship carers to provide safe, stable and loving homes to children in need.
The foster and kinship families that we work with embrace the diverse backgrounds and unique circumstances that this year’s National Families Week theme promotes.
What makes a family?
There's no such thing as a ‘typical family,’ and families aren’t necessarily defined by blood or shared genetics.
Four in five respondents from the Families in Australia survey (2021), conducted by the Australian Institute of Families Studies, considered love and unconditional, non-judgemental support as important factors when defining what makes a family.
In the survey, participants identified the following groups of people as their family:
- parents and in-laws
- siblings
- children
- partner or spouse
- pet(s)
- grandparents and grandchildren
- blended families or step families
- other extended family, chosen family or close friends
- foster families.
How to celebrate National Families Week
There are many ways that you can celebrate National Families Week. For instance, you could organise a family get-together with your loved ones, attend a National Families Week event, educate children about the different types of families that exist in Australia or create your own family tree.
Other supports available to families
At Anglicare Southern Queensland, we provide a range of supports to improve family wellbeing, no matter what your family looks like. Some of these include:
Foster care network
We support foster carers, their families and children in their care to feel connected with one another. This support also extends to foster children and ensuring that they are still able to maintain connection with their cultural background and birth families (where safe and feasible to).
While the end goal in foster care is reunification, our service endeavours to ensure foster children feel safe, supported and cared for by their foster families and, again, when returned to the care of their birth families.
Kinship carers
Our organisation supports numerous kinship families. Kinship carers are usually extended family, friends or those who have a pre-existing connection with young people in out of home care (i.e. grandparents who care for their grandchildren, older siblings and aunts or uncles). Families who care for kin help them to maintain connections with their wider family, culture and identity.
Family support
Anglicare Southern Queensland’s other family support programs assist families to identify and achieve their goals to improve family outcomes. These programs always focus on the wellbeing of children.
Our family support programs include:
- Family Mental Health Support Services
- Assessment Services Connect
- Intensive Family Support
- Secondary Family Support
- Family Intervention Service.
Click here to read more about our family support programs.
Children and parenting
Our children and parenting programs work with families to identify their goals and help parents/ caregivers and children to improve their wellbeing, resilience and knowledge. These programs include:
- playgroups
- school readiness
- parenting programs and education
- child social and emotional wellbeing programs
- Operation Kinder Community.
For more information on our children and parenting programs, click here.
Learn more
To learn more about becoming a foster carer, please visit our Resource Library. It includes information on how to become a carer, stories from real life carers, and frequently asked questions.
To access information on our family wellbeing and children and parenting services, head over to our Family Wellbeing page or call 1300 114 397 to speak to our team for more information on accessing our services.
