EPIC Parent Support Online Expo

Madeleine (EPIC): Hi everyone thank you very much for joining us on the EPIC Online Support Organization Expo, my name is Madeleine, I'm from EPIC which is Empowering Parents In Crisis. And to begin our evening, I will pass over to Roberta for the acknowledgement of Country.

Roberta (EPIC): Thanks Madeleine. Welcome everyone EPIC would like to respectfully acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which we gather and connect today. We acknowledge the elders past and present and pay our respect to the clans of the Carigal, Cammeraigal, Gayimai, Cannalgal and Wallumdegal, where this supportive community often gathers.

Madeleine (EPIC): Thank you Roberta, all right, so tonight is all about providing information and strategies for parents and carers of young people and those who work with young people or interact with young people as well, and introduce you to some of the wonderful organisations that work with young people and families in our community.

Before we start I would like to wish everybody a happy World Kindness Day. November the 13th is World Kindness Day and it's a day devoted to practising and promoting kindness. EPIC believes kindness feeds kindness, so therefore kindness is at the core of our organisation,

and as such we would also like to wish ourselves a very happy second birthday! EPIC launched on World Kindness day in 2021. Since then we've grown to over 300 members and connected with more and more organisations, who also operate from the place of kindness. And as a testament there's some really awesome organisations here tonight who have come here voluntarily, so I thank you very much.

What we're going to do tonight is we're going to go through and introduce each organisation. Each will have a two-minute introduction and then it'll be followed by three panel discussions with the experts that we have brought along tonight, so thank you again our experts. To kick it off we might start with us seeing as I've got the floor!

EPIC Intro: Tonight from EPIC we have myself Madeleine I'm director and CEO, Roberta is my co-director, Siba is on the executive committee and also with us tonight is Rowena who's wearing two hats. Rowena is representing The Northern Center however she's also the awesome EPIC secretary.

EPIC is Empowering Parents In Crisis. We provide peer support to parents and carers of young people particularly young people in crisis and or experiencing mental health concerns. We're led by parents with lived experience and we recognise that parents are first responders to their children so we acknowledge that we need support in being able to do this wonderful job that we do, and it's a really hard job.

Parents are often confused and isolated and scared and they feel powerless to help their young person. What we do is we provide a space which is non-judgmental. It's a community that empowers parents with knowledge and skills and confidence so that they can best support their young person, their families and, most importantly themselves.

EPIC offers peer support over the phone in person walks and events such as this we draw on the hindsight of our members and we collaborate closely with other youth and family support organisations such as the ones that are here with us tonight. We aim to remove barriers and demystify pathways to support. We have big ears and warm hearts. We'd love to connect with you. Now I will pass over to Anthony Rigney from kids.

Visit the EPIC website here.

Anthony Rigney (KYDS): Good evening everyone happy birthday EPIC! Since 2005 KYDS Youth Counselling has focused on ensuring all young people in our community have access to barrier-free mental health support. KYDS Youth Counselling is guided by the eight principles for mental health services as set out by the National Children's Mental Health and well-being strategy.

Firstly accessibility, we offer free mental health and counselling support with no need for a GP referral or mental health care plan. Young people and their families can self-refer and we offer convenient appointments close to home or school. We're really focused on early intervention and we believe that providing help early, before issues become severe is incredibly important. The majority of young people who access support from KYDS Youth Counselling do so before they reach clinical levels of psychological distress.

We're individually centred in that we tailor counselling to meet the unique needs of each individual, ensuring that young people work with the same clinician throughout building a strong therapeutic relationship.

Our focus is on ensuring that young people only have to tell their story once.

We're strength-based at KYDS. We focus on identifying and nurturing a young person's strengths to enhance their self-identity resilience and life skills.

We're needs based, our support is based on the specific challenges young people face from anxiety and depression to other serious issues.

We offer unlimited counselling sessions providing help to young people and families for as long as they need it. We're holistic, at KYDS we consider the whole person addressing their overall well-being and functioning in various contexts and directing young people to additional supports at the right time.

We're systemic, we collaborate with the young person's family and support network creating a coordinated approach to mental health and overall well-being.

And we're feedback informed, so KYDS clinicians use real-time data on a young person's well-being to inform our support allowing us to track progress and make improvements.

And finally at KYDS were committed to the no wrong door approach to supporting young people and families and work closely with all the services, many of whom are represented here tonight, to get young people to the services that can provide them with the right support at the right time.

Madeleine (EPIC): Awesome thanks Anthony. Ryan.

Visit KYDS Youth Development website here.

Ryan (headspace Chatswood): Good evening everyone and happy second birthday day to EPIC as well! My name is Ryan and I'm from Headspace. Headspace is the National Youth Mental Health Foundation. We have over 150 locations nationwide and the Chatswood Center is the local Center for pretty much the whole Northshore area. We do early intervention for young people aged 12 to 25 and we work mainly in the mild to moderate range, so really trying to help young people at the earliest stage possible with whatever their concerns may be.

We have a multidisciplinary team that's made up of psychologists, mental health social workers, youth counsellors as well as GPs. And our GPs don't need to be, or the young person doesn't need to be, linked up with a mental health clinician to link him with our GP. So especially with how times are, we know that trying to find a bulk billing GP can be quite tough, so young people can come into our GP Services as well if need be, as mentioned we are a completely free service. All our funding is covered through Medicare and the local public health network, the Sydney North Health Network.

And like Anthony said, we are also committed to the no wrong door approach. So if any young person comes into our service, even if we may not be the right fit for them, we will help facilitate referrals into all the wonderful services here and all the wonderful services that are in our region as well to ensure that the young person gets the best care possible.

Madeleine (EPIC): Thank you Ryan, Rowena.

Visit Headspace Chatswood website here.

Rowena (The Northern Centre): Happy birthday EPIC! Such a wonderful occasion tonight. My name's Rowena. I'm the programs manager at The Northern Center and I'm here with Sarah who's our team leader for family support and family worker, and you'll hear from her later.

We're based in West Ryde and we deliver three key programs across Northern Sydney.

• Casework support for people who are at risk of homelessness,
• We support people who have left domestic and family violence and are seeking someone to assess them to coordinate services as they navigate a life free of violence.
• And perhaps most relevant to tonight's audience, family and parenting support.

We've got a team of qualified and experienced family workers who can support you as you navigate the challenges and celebrate the successes you may experience on your parenting journey. Through individual support we can work with you to build your confidence and your parenting skills. You might also find a parenting program suits you better, a place where you can not only learn new parenting strategies and skills such as emotion coaching or how to have tough conversations, but a place where you realise that you aren't the only parent who's finding it hard.

Parents usually connect with us over a three-month period and many like to go away and give things a go themselves and come back for a check in. We're your parenting partner until your child turns 18. When you connect with us we'll have an initial chat, however you might need to wait four to six weeks for a family worker to be available to work with you, but during this time we can provide you with targeted referrals to other supports you might need our services are free of charge can be delivered face to face via zoom over the phone.

And we're very fortunate to have a Mandarin and a Korean speaking family workers as part of our team, so if you live in the Ryde, Hunters Hill or Ku-ring-gai local government area or have a close connection to these three LGA’s please give us a call, thank you.

Madeleine (EPIC): Wonderful thanks Rowena, Helen from StreetWork.

Visit The Northern Centre website here.

Helen Banu (Streetwork): Thanks so much Madeleine, happy birthday EPIC!

It is wonderful that most of us here have probably journeyed with you, so congratulations on achieving this amazing milestone.

Hello everybody my name is Helen Banu. I'm the CEO of StreetWork. StreetWork's been operating since 1980 so we think that we know what we're doing and have had great success for the last 43 years in delivering service to vulnerable young people. We do this through a one-on-one mentoring program where we link a qualified youth case worker with a vulnerable young person and they journey together.

The young people that we work with are all aged 11 to 18 and are impacted by one or more of the following risk factors:

• whether it's a little bit of interaction with the police,
• it could be school disengagement, poor mental health,
• it could be social isolation,
• at risk of homelessness as well.

Normally the young people we work with are impacted by more than one of those risk factors. It is actually a goal-based program so the young person first of all needs to be a voluntary participant. So as much as many parents or many other organisations want us to force their young person to participate it is voluntary in that it, the young people have to set goals to address the risk factors that are impacting their lives. We call ourselves community connectors so we will work with our youth.

Case workers will establish rapport, build trust and have fun with these young people. And then we actually then connect them to the specialist services who then do the, you know, the heavy lifting when it comes to the risks that are impacting them. So it may be a referral to a mental health service or it could be a referral and support while the young person seeks drug and alcohol counselling. Or it could actually be that support person sitting with them in the court, you know, the courtroom while their charges are being heard and so forth. We normally work with young people for as little as three months and then, you know, depending on the risk and the goals that they want, it could be of course longer than that. We work with these wonderful other organisations, and many more, that are sitting here and we're really pleased to be part of this amazing community that is supporting young people. Thank you.

Madeleine (EPIC): Thank you Helen it is a great Community. Okay and next up can we say hello to Rachael

Visit the Streetwork website here.

Rachael (SDECC): Hello, hi everyone I'm Rachel from SDECC, Sydney Drug Education and Counselling Centre. We offer specialised AOD counselling for young people aged 12 to 25 in the Northern Sydney region. We have a Counselling Centre in St Leonard's and Manly.

We're cost free, they don't need a Medicare card, it's also not time limited and we often say that we have a revolving door so we adapt to work with young people that they might come for a little bit have an assessment and get a little bit of support, go away for a bit and then come back when they need us.

We also support parents for our parenting program called Paving Ways, and I'll get a bit more detail into that later on. Okay thanks.

Madeleine (EPIC): Awesome, thanks Rachel, Justine from PALM.

Visit the SDECC website here.

Justine (Ted Noffs PALM): Yes, hi Madeleine, thank you and congrats on two years. It's fantastic! Happy birthday. Hi everybody, I'm Justine. I'm the manager of Ted Noffs PALM program here in Randwick. We are a residential treatment program in brackets, rehab, for young people aged 13 to 18 years of age.

Our young people come in here to address serious drug and alcohol related difficulties or issues. We usually find in that age bracket they don't quite have an addiction at that time but usually their drug use is problematic.

We operate as a therapeutic community and the program goes for three months. However, I do like to stress that we encourage our young people to come in because they even can take away quite a lot from this program in a period of two, three, four weeks, because it can be quite intensive.

We have staff that are professional, staff that are trained in, working through complex trauma and AOD, alcohol and drug issues, challenging behaviours, complex needs, mental health and so forth. The program also offers counselling, so each young person is assigned their own counsellor when they come in.

We also help with family support and group work as well. Once a young person enters PALM they like acrin a few decades ago they can have a calm workout which basically is an aftercare worker.

So whether the young person has been here for two days or completed the whole program, that aftercare worker will stay with them for an unlimited amount of time and they will call and connect with the client and see if they're going to school, help them with counselling, any type of thing they have on their list that they need to address, their calm worker will help them do that.

We accept referrals from all different pathways. The cost for a young person is $165 a week, however, I do like to stress too that quite often will wave that for families that are struggling. What else can I tell? We have another Palm down in Canberra as well and we've just opened up one, which is quite exciting, in culture in Queensland. So I think that's about all from me really, thank you.

Madeleine (EPIC): Wonderful, thanks so much Justine. We have Lucy from Killara High School, and I just want to put a little side note here that in the email that I will send later on, it will actually refer also to the wonderful work Lucy does through B2B parenting, so there's awesome information and resources there for parents. So over to you Lucy.

Visit the Noffs website here.

Lucy, Killara High School Student Support Officer: Thank you Madeleine, happy birthday, always love to have a bit of a celebration. And I have to say, thank you to all the other services on this call because we've used an awful lot of them. I learned my trade through Helen Banu and Streetwork so enormous appreciation to her.

So the student Support Officer role at a high school is really a bit like a concierge. They're someone who connects within the school and outside of the school. It's a Department of Education initiative and they should be in every High School across New South Wales. Some schools don't have them because they maybe struggle to recruit or they might be changing, but every high school should have one, so that's a great contact for your young person.

We don't tend to be the contact for the parent and that's kind of worth knowing. Your contact for the parent will be more likely to be your year advisor and the purpose of that is so that the young person has someone at school that they can connect to, that they trust, that they feel is their person and then it's slightly separate from from you know, anything that has anything to do with the parent.

But we also work as concierge on the inside to see maybe what needs to be triaged to the counsellor, to the deputy, to the year advisors, maybe it might be a whole school program. We might be looking at targeted programs, we might be looking at one to ones, but we also can support with finding volunteer projects and getting people into a little bit of giving back.

And the only other thing that's worth saying is we also act as a point of referral out into the community. So if you're, I'll talk about it later with specific issues that are brought up but, if your young person is struggling, they're a really good first referral for them to decide whether counselling is even for them, because most SSO's will know how to encourage young person to self-refer for counselling or look for that counselling if they're a little bit afraid to.

Madeleine (EPIC): Wonderful! Thank you so much Lucy, it's a really great asset that schools have to have an SSO, so thank you. Okay, Kath from Mission Australia over to you.

More information can be found on the NSW Department of Education website here.

Kathryn (Mission Australia): Hi everyone, I'm Kath Best from Mission Australia. And girls, Madeleine, Roberta and Siba, this EPIC is an amazing program and I congratulate you on your second birthday, and I know there will be many many more.

So as I say, I'm the youth counsellor across Northern Sydney region. Mission has nine programs in homelessness, youth disability, mental health, and alcohol and other drug sectors. I'm part of the Northern Sydney Youth Early Intervention Homelessness Service and we support young people from the age of 12 to 24 who have, who are, at risk of homelessness.

It is a free service. We provide individualised case management. Case counselling support, tenancy support, advocacy and referral, and access to the appropriate services. And because we all work as a community our case workers are incredible. They'll walk beside the young person until you know their goals are achieved. And nothing is too small. They perform miracles.

We have offices in Hornsby and Brookville although we are on the case work especially, it is an outreach program, and we'll meet the clients wherever it is comfortable and convenient for them. We cover the Hornsby, Ryde, Ku-ring-Gai, Northern beaches, North Sydney, Willoughby, Hunters Hill, and Lane Cove areas.

Counselling tends to be done in our offices although we do have sessions at school or at other secure locations. We also work out of the Avalon youth Hub in Avalon every Thursday afternoon. At the moment we have capacity to see new counselling clients in Hornsby and Brookville. We've probably got about a 4 week wait with case management at the moment. It's a 4 week wait but it's an amazing organisation and we work with them until their needs are met.

Madeleine (EPIC): Awesome thanks Kath, it is good working alongside all of your organisations. It's really really really good. Okay, over to Sam from Youth Up Front.

Visit the Mission Australia website here.

Samantha (Youth Up Front): Thanks Madeleine. Happy birthday and thank you very much for including us.

We're, I guess, probably a little bit different. Youth Up Front this year is celebrating its 30th year, so somewhere in the middle between the older ones and the younger ones.

Our organisation is unique in that we actually focus on the career and transition support side. So we've predominantly been in operation working in partnership with secondary schools. They're our main stakeholder. Being primarily funded by the Department of Ed and currently we're working with just under 40 secondary schools across Northern Sydney.

We're often that gateway I think through behaviour and disengagement in school. To be able to support schools to then connect into other services.

Our team primarily in that student engagement space, are youth workers, but we have a really strong focus on vocational education.

Over the years we've actually become more of a collaborative approach to supporting young people because their needs have become more complex, and for us, our services fall into three key pillars:

• Skills for life,

• Skills for work, and

• Skills for well-being.

So I guess primarily our, whilst we do so we will support young people age 12 to 25, primarily we are focused on secondary schools, secondary school age, rather.

Some of the key things that we engage with are around that career and transition space, so we run an annual event where around 2 and a half thousand young people attend to support them with all ranges of career transition options.

We work with around 200 plus young people in the student engagement space, which comprises of regular programming. A day a week out of school, anywhere from a four week sort of chunk for bespoke programs through to full-term programs. Anything from 10 weeks to 20 weeks, and in some cases we've actually got some schools that have covered a full 35 weeks of the year, so we've got you know, a few weeks at either end.

Generally they're kids that are wanting to find a balance between what their needs are at school from an education point of view and supporting them in transitioning out successfully into other lifelong learning such as apprenticeships, traineeships etc. We also link over 2,000 young people into industry placements, working side by side with local businesses. So we're very lucky that's probably the foundational program for us. We have a really strong partnership with communities through business, families and schools.

I'm really proud, just throwing out something that's just nothing to do with tonight, but we're very proud to be celebrating our third year as a community partner with the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles, which I think is a really great opportunity for us to actually showcase how important young people are in our community and the involvement and collaboration that sport brings into a lot of young people's lives. And then just as to what Anthony said and many others as well we work with a lot of services including the ones on panel tonight and many others and definitely embrace the no wrong dra approach which for us supports parents to relieve some of that stress in trying to seek support when they need the most. There's nothing worse than contacting a service and not knowing whether that's what you need or not and getting an answer that says sorry that's actually not what we do. So whilst it's not something that any service is funded for, it's definitely something that we're trying to foster across all services, to be able to make sure that for parents it makes it easier to just ask, because that's often the hardest first step. So thank you it absolutely is.

Madeleine (EPIC): Thanks Sam and Happy 30 year birthday and three year anniversary it's a wonderful milestone well done, thank you. Okay so I'm going to hand over now to Siba. We've got our first panel discussion on depression and or anxiety so I'll just hand over to Siba to facilitate.

Visit the Youth Up Front website here.

Siba (EPIC): Thank you very much Maddie and happy birthday to EPIC, which was your dream and vision, and we're here two years onwards. Everything starts with a step.

Really grateful and privileged to have all the people on the call especially the three panellists are I'll be speaking to which is Anthony I've had the pleasure of talking to him before from KYDS, Ryan from Headspace and The Northern Centre, and we are tapping into a topic that's unfortunately very current and touches everybody's life.

Depression and anxiety in young people manifest in many ways and the parents are often sensing there's something not going well for their young person, but they don't know how to approach it and they don't feel they're equipped to support. And since EPIC recognises that parents and carers are the first responders to their children, they're with them through the good and the not so good and often guided by circumstances beyond their control. It can become extremely overwhelming when they cannot access counselling. It's even even worse when they can and their young person just doesn't want it. What can we do? Help!

I would like to start with Ryan, and say what kind of mental health concerns do you see presenting in young people at Headspace in Chatswood, since it's your domain?

Ryan (Headspace): Yeah, we see a wide range of mental health concerns coming through but I think two of the really prevalent concerns are definitely depression and anxiety and we see young people coming through with varying levels of depression and anxiety as well. Anxiety can take on many different forms, it could be social anxiety, it could be from academic pressures, it could be from multiple stresses in their life. So we know that it's not just one little bit that we're seeing, we're seeing many different concerns coming through in regards to anxiety and we know that this can lead to depressive episodes in young people as well.

So I think these two are definitely some of the main things we see coming through. And we also see a little bit of comorbidity as well so if a young person may be experiencing something else, we know that there's likely to be a bit of anxiety or a bit of depression that will come along with that as well.

Siba (EPIC): Yeah, not easy. Considering your experience do you have any tips for families to encourage their young people to engage with such support being offered by places like Headspace?

Ryan (Headspace): Yeah, I guess I want to firstly say that getting support at any age is tough. Sometimes the hardest thing is making that first step and acknowledging that you do need help. So I think that this is something that we all encounter at all stages of our lives, but I think especially with young people, it can be really tough sometimes to encourage them to get that support when you know they need it, or you get the sense that they need it but they may be a little bit hesitant.

I think a couple of things to really consider is to try and be a role model for them, so that they can be starting those conversations around a little bit of mental health. It doesn't need to be deep diving into mental health itself but it can just be asking how they're going on each day, it could just be oh I've noticed you're a little bit down do you want to talk about something. A really kind of soft entry point into exploring what might be going on.

Encouraging, we also want to try and encourage them to talk but we don't want to force them.

Young people don't want to feel like they're being forced to do something. These days we know that if we force them to do something, they're going to be a bit resistant to it, especially straight up, so we want to encourage them to talk without forcing the issue. So again just that real soft entry saying you know I've noticed you know you seem a little bit upset lately, do you want to have a chat about it? And if they don't, leave it there for that night and just say no worries, if you do want to come to me you're always welcome to come have a chat at any time.

We also want to encourage listening without judgement. So we don't want to be judgmental if they do start to open up because if we start to judge, even in our expressions, then we know that can be a real turning point for young people and they are likely to go back into their shell.

And the last thing I guess is to try and be a little bit interested in what's going on with them. That can be a really good way to start those conversations. Find out what their interests are, talk to them about that and that can be the segway into starting those conversations around getting support.

Siba (EPIC): So suggesting, to be curious to notice trends, nonjudgmental and to take interest in their day to day life.

Ryan (Headspace): Yeah definitely, definitely.

Siba (EPIC): Find out a little bit about what they're going to do, what they enjoy, what's going on and that can really spark those conversations. Amazing thank you so much for that Ryan.

I'd like to move to Anthony who's been supporting young people for many many years, and you will have seen interaction between parents and their young people and young people talking about their parents, so let's talk about the good things. What have you seen that parents have done, when supporting their young people that worked for them?

Anthony (KYDS): Yes, I think it's a great question. I mean first we just want everyone to know and hopefully you get a sense of this by kind of being part of tonight's celebration, is that you're not alone and that in your role as a parent, providing consistent love and support can really make a significant difference in your child's journey, to managing anxiety and depression.

I think the other thing that we really want to highlight is that it's okay to seek help for yourself as well, and that you don't need to navigate this journey alone. It's part of the reason why we think EPIC is such a wonderful organisation because it does really support parents and carers in terms of navigating this journey which can often be very painful and challenging at times.

I guess we think about all changes being in the context of the quality of the relationship, that parents and carers are able to kind of build and maintain with their young person. But we also know that that relationship can take a bit of a hit, particularly when parents and carers are worried about what's going on for their young person. They can't seem to quite figure out what the problem is, so it can take time to support young people and to kind of refine that relationship.

Once you understand what they need to help make things better, and oftentimes, that can come through the source of a diagnosis, like getting a diagnosis of anxiety or depression. I think picking up on what Ryan was saying before that open communication is really important. One of the things that we really do encourage parents and carers to think about is before you even go and raise your concerns with a young person actually really think about and prepare for that conversation ahead of time. Think about the outcome that you want to achieve from that conversation, and stay focused on that outcome, rather than necessarily getting, that can also be very helpful in terms of avoiding getting caught up in the understandable emotion of trying to understand what's going on for your young person. Think about the timing of that conversation.

And Ryan's raised a really interesting point which is that oftentimes we think that we're staying calm or that our tone of voice is kind of neutral. But what we also know is that young people, particularly those who are feeling anxious or maybe feeling really depressed or sad are often very sensitive to these kinds of interactions and sensitive to what it can mean to be reaching out and asking for help.

So again, sometimes you can even just practice in the mirror how you're going to approach this conversation, the kinds of things that you're going to say and how you monitor your tone of voice in relation to your young person can be really important. Something else that we think is really important when you're approaching a young person and wanting to understand how to best support them in terms of their experience of anxiety and depression is to get educated yourself because this knowledge will help you to empathise and provide the appropriate support for your young person. No one knows your young person better than you and so again the professionals that sit around you, the teachers, the other mental health professionals, they'll all be sort of looking at your knowledge about that young person to help them understand how they can best support.

And the final one that we really like to highlight particularly around depression and anxiety is the importance of establishing a daily routine to create that sense of stability. For a child, that consistency, in particular where a young person is very anxious, can help to reduce anxiety and improve their overall well-being. So Siba, there's a few tips that we think have worked really well.

Siba (EPIC): Fantastic. So just to recap, be intentional, prepare yourself for the conversation, educate yourself, practice, and then build it with consistency, Fantastic thank you so much for that Anthony.

Sarah, can you please imagine that I'm a parent who suspects that my young person is struggling with anxiety and depression. I want to support them but I'm not sure where to start. Can you walk me through a scenario of what happens if I pick up the phone to speak to you.

Sarah (The Northern Centre): You sure can ask me! I'll talk to you a little bit about how and when you connect with a support like ours. We have parents and carers call us for a range of different reasons and we're here to support them and you guys to find the support that you need. There are a few ways to contact our service. You may already be working with a service and you can ask them to connect you with a family support service like ours here at The Northern Center. You can call us directly on a main office line and you can also connect through the website. Many parents prefer to do something like this because they can give us a few details in a few sentences about what they would like support around then we'll give you a call to contact you, or contact you to let you know that we receive that request for support, and our intake coordinator will then give you a call so that we can get you on that list for support.

So the question often is, what does that call look like? We know, it can be really daunting to make that first call for support and we want to make it as easy as possible. Just like all the services here, everyone wants to try and make it as easy as possible for you when you pick up that phone. We really understand how hard it can be to make that first call.

So what does this call look like? We're going to be asking you about your concerns and explaining to you how we work with families. We would ask you about how you're managing with what's going on with your young person. Because you're really important too, we need to make sure that you're doing okay. And look at how we can support you.

We would ask you if you need to know information about how to connect with a mental health professional, counsellor, psychologist for your young person. Services such as KYDS and Headspace that are here tonight. Or talk to you through the process of how to get a referral from a GP to get that additional support. We talk about your young person's school engagement, and if you have any open communication with the school already, or what does that look like? We look to how we can support you within that domain. We would let you know that through our family support, individual option, we can support you to be, we can support you to support the young person. We can help you to understand mental health and provide you with information and strategies to support your relationship with your young person.

The Family support is about getting the opportunity to reflect on your parenting and how you want to be as a parent, and being supported on how to make the changes that you want to be able to make within your family. We may also discuss with you an option of doing a parenting program such as Engaging Adolescence or Tuning into Teens that Rowena had mentioned there in our introduction. Some parents sometimes prefer to come along to a group program rather than engage in the individual support, at the beginning of service or sometimes even at the end, after doing a bit of work individually with one of our family workers.

And the last thing we'll do is explore with you any further referrals to support you may need. As an example a referral to EPIC, you know you might need that peer support with other parents, you know financial counselling, one of the other services that's sitting here on the panel. We might even refer you along to information evenings just like this one.

So the idea is that if you give us a call we want to make it easy for you, and I suppose that's sort of the main thing that we want, that we, the service, is here to help you out. That's kind of what the call looks like when you reach out for support.

Siba (EPIC): Thank you very much, that is reassuring Sarah and it sounds like I've heard this term recently, White Glove service it's like a butler service where somebody will guide you and give you the extra support to understand what you have to offer so you can utilise it better.

Sarah (TNC): Yeah, that's right, and we are that support to land for parents to come in and just talk about that parenting, get the emotional support for yourself so you can be the best parent that you want to be for your young person.

Siba (EPIC): Perfect thank you very much. Now to the three of you, Anthony, Ryan and Sarah. You've done this day after day, year after year and you have got a wealth of experience. If you were to distil this knowledge as a result of your work and give a nugget of wisdom and hope, what would you tell your parents who are worried about their kids and the potential of anxiety or depression? Anthony, start please.

Anthony (KYDS): Look I think what we would say is that hopelessness is infectious and so you know, how do you find hope and how do you hold on to hope, particularly for your young person when they're going through such a difficult time? It's one of the mantras that we have here at kids and so how to find hope in that really challenging time is is something that we definitely think about as clinicians one of the ways that we think is really important or one of the "Nuggets" that we'd like people to take home is that it's important for parents and carers to model coping strategies to their young people. So make sure that you're demonstrating healthy coping mechanisms yourself so that your child can learn by example even though you feel like your young person's not watching or isn't paying attention, trust me, they really are. And so there's a range of different models of coping strategies out there. It could involve relaxation techniques, problem solving, mindfulness, you know, hitting the gym, whatever it is, but it's important to continue to model those positive coping strategies to your young person.

Siba (EPIC): Amazing thank you very much. Ryan?

Ryan (Headspace): I think from my experience working with young people it's definitely that young people do really appreciate the role that parents do even if they may not always show it or say it to you directly. They will say it to someone. So know that they do appreciate you, they do really love everything that you do for them. And as Anthony said, they will pick up on things that you do, so again, encourage you to really be that positive role model for them because the habits that you put down they will pick up in the end.

Siba (EPIC): And Sarah?

Sarah (TNC): I'll weave a couple in just very quickly so, if I may, so I suppose of coming in from that parenting angle, to think about as parents you don't need to show up to every argument that you're invited to by your young person, ensure you have your shield of armour on and don't take everything they say personally and finally and I think probably most importantly is working on trying to maintain relationship with your young person and finding moments of connection is just really really important it can be just those little tiny moments where you're on the same page, even if it's just for a glimmer, you know, of amount of time. So looking for connection points.

Siba (EPIC): Amazing. I think all of this has been extremely useful. I'm sure our parents listening could really think from the wealth of your experience and move forward in their journeys with their kids. And with that I would like to move the peace to Roberta. Thank you.

Roberta (EPIC): Thanks Siba and thanks Anthony, Ryan, and Sarah all very insightful, and wish I'd had some of that knowledge the beginning of my journey, as well as the information that's about to come from Helen, Rachel and Justine who are focused or have interests in the Alcohol and Other Drug space and experience with young people not coming home and encounters with the police so just to set the

(A bit of confusion. We now welcome Thomas Dent who has popped into the call :) Will not include convo organising new entry).

Sorry not quite sure how far I got through setting the scene but I guess it's establishing talking with Helen or Tom from Streetwork, Rachel from SDECC and Justine from PALM, how we deal with these issues and help parents manage the shock and the fear that they're feeling.

My first question is for Streetwork so Helen, or Tom. The young people that Streetwork supports often find themselves in trouble with the police whether that's through drug use, stealing, graffiti, fighting, or selling drugs, to help sustain their habits. This is particularly challenging for parents because they need to learn how to advocate for the young person at the same time as setting boundaries and keeping the young person safe. So what can parents do when there are legal concerns? Helen or Tom I'll hand over to you.

Helen (Streetwork): Roberta I might just take this opportunity just to introduce Thomas Dent who is our youth services manager who actually helps and supports our crew of youth youth case workers who often end up at the police station advocating for young people. So over to you Tom.

Thomas (Streetwork): Yeah I think that's probably an important thing to think of in the answer to that question is in what situation are you and your child at the time? And I think probably let's go to the first time, there might be information given to you that your child is in trouble with the law is when they're arrested and they're in custody. That's where our street work advocates will find young people.

As well, I think probably the important thing to think of is when your child is in a lockup, in a cell. I don't know how many people here have been to the local cells, but I might try to paint a picture for you. As someone who's gone out to support many young people at the local police stations I'll give you a bit of an extreme example. Number one it's cold. Those police cells are cold, they're uncomfortable and they're little spots in the custody holding cell. As people are being processed, and it's not just young people in those spaces, we'll think of maybe your child's 13, 14, 15, we'll sit on the young end, we'll say 13, 14. So imagine you're 13 and 14 and in the cell next to you is an older gentleman who is drunk off his face and he's swearing and he's vomiting, and that vomit might be now going towards yourself. And then, next to you is maybe a very irate sex worker who's yelling obscenities and all kinds of crazy things and there's your child in the middle of those cells. And I've seen young people in exactly that situation and it's terrifying.

And even though things might be really tough at home and there might be the challenges there and things feel like they're falling apart, probably the the biggest thing I can stress to all parents is when you go to support your child at the police station, when they're in that situation, you might feel a lot of embarrassment, shame, anger towards your child, but that time and space is not the time and space to communicate that. That's the time that your child really needs you to be there for them, and to feel that they've made mistakes, but you love them and you're there for them. And you might still feel the need to communicate something about when we get home or later we're going to talk about this, but right now are you okay? And let's get through this, and let's maybe take our mind off this process, because you can be at the police station for quite a long time.

But if there's just that one thing I could communicate in all instances, when things are tough, when it gets to a legal point, is just to make sure your child knows that you're there for them without condition because there's still going to be legal processes and steps afterwards to take and there are people who can help. So the people who were there usually managing the custody spaces at the police station can be quite good, and what they have to do is get your child to call Legal Aid.

There is a youth legal aid hotline that you can call to get legal advice that can come, you don't have to sort out and solve a crime there, and the police are quite often stretched thin.

There's a police shortage of numbers at the moment so really, they'll appreciate people who can just sort of say we'll deal with all the emotional stuff later, right now let's get our advice from legal aid and then, post being in the cells. There are wonderful youth officers at all the local police stations that you can contact and say can we sit down and have a chat to get information about what's really happening for my child. And those youth officers at the police stations too are a through line to the PCYC that have then police run activities and programs to help get your child into change. I guess their relationship with the police and what I'm getting to with all of this as well, from when you first see your child in the cell and you're trying to create that that warmth, that love, to let your child know that you are still close to them is so important to then take to the next level. For them to feel that the police are there as a support for them too and that the people at the PCYC are there as a supportive community.

Because what you are competing against are all those factors outside of the home that might be drawing your child to them. If something is happening at home that is breaking down, that is potentially encouraging your child to find belonging and connection elsewhere, with negative influences, people who are having more say in terms of encouraging them towards drug use or criminal activity, you've got to create something that competes against that, and help make that belonging and connection and that warmth happen elsewhere.

And so I can say to the police, you know there there are definitely ways that they can improve, I would like to see them provide safe and more comfortable spaces for young people in custody, but in terms of what we have to work with right now, these programs, I've seen them work really really well. So that if a young person could feel like the police aren't judging them, they actually wanted to see them succeed in in PCYC programs by attending the other meetings and there removing the shame and guilt, then you've got a really good step to compete against the local drug dealers, or their mate, to say we're not going to judge you we're going to make you feel comfortable, we're going to make you feel warm and connected, and here are some drugs to take your mind off all the stress and things happening at home.

So I hope that kind of makes sense and I hope it's given a little bit of an overview that there are support networks at each place. If you do find yourself a court there are wonderful youth workers and even mental health workers at the local children's courts, sometimes you do have to ask for them. I think it can be worthwhile saying if you're there for a long stay in court, who are the people here to speak to my child and support at each stage. There are people who can give you helpful information.

I hope it makes sense in the way that a lot of what can occur if a young person finds themselves in trouble with the law and connected to or finding an outlet in drug and alcohol, it's knowing how to strategically compete against that by making sure that your child is is getting all that encouragement to come come back home, rather than the guilt and shame that can drive them straight back out to the the community. So Helen, you've been here for the whole evening unfortunately I had to get kids to settle so I hope I'm on topic and I'm sort of giving some of the information that can help some of us here. What's your take on things.

Roberta (EPIC): Everything that you shared has been great to help demystify the situation for parents who have found themselves in that spot and sorry Helen to cut you off, but we do have to move over to the other participants. I might come back to you Helen when we're asking for the sentence of hope for the families after the next two participants have responded.

My next question is for Rachael from SDECC and SDECC is an organisation that helps with young people and families around alcohol and other drug concerns. So what advice would you give parents if they suspect alcohol and other drug use, thanks Rachael.

Rachael (SDECC): So the first piece of advice that I'd like to give parents is not to panic. We know that developmentally young people are in their experimental years. And in many cases where young people experiment with AOD use, they will grow out of it, so it's really common for families who contact SDECC to be feeling anxious, fearful and overwhelmed. I want to validate that this response is very normal.

What we know about substance use is that in our society it's highly stigmatised which creates a barrier to support. It's being criminalised and seen as immoral and often viewed as the individual's choice, and therefore being perceived as less deserving of support. So if you suspect that your young person is using substances it may be a really good opportunity to reflect on your attitudes and get a little bit curious about any biases and beliefs that you may have before responding.

When parents suspect AOD use, a really common question that we hear is what have I done wrong? It's important to know that parents aren't the cause of their young person's substance use, however at SDECC, we can help parents be more effective in the way they engage and respond to their young person.

We would like to invite parents to make contact with our service if they feel like their young person may be using, either just starting to experiment or using regularly, it's better to get support in the early stages rather than waiting until crisis. We think it's always a good idea to get more information. Just don't go Googling, because that will scare you more. Rather get support and information with the connection of services.

What we know from the research is that outcomes for young people with AOD use is far better when the parents are involved with the interventions. So the support that we can offer parents is through our six week program Paving Ways. Paving ways is a psychoeducational therapeutic group for parents and carers run by our counsellors who understand the complexities of problematic AOD use and associated mental health issues. It's a safe and confidential environment providing support, education, tools and strategies to help respond to the challenges that parents may be facing with their young person's AOD use. The group runs for six consecutive weeks in the afternoon either from our St Leonard's or Manly counselling centres and we are also often online. Evaluation of the groups have been really positive.

Some feedback we've received from parents is that it's given them more confidence to make changes and also learning about the need for self-care and setting boundaries.

There is also the option to have counselling after the program, so this helps families get tailored support while applying the changes they've learned from Paving Ways. And we always make sure that young people and their families have separate counsellors so that confidentiality can be kept. What we see at SDECC is that when parents attend the Paving Ways program first, 70% of the young people will then attend for individual counselling. So all services are free and confidential, no Medicare card is needed and a self-referral service for parents.

So in summary if you do suspect that your young person is using substances firstly, don't panic! Get more information with the connection of services, and you're welcome to call our service and chat more about what support you may need.

Roberta (EPIC): Thanks that's great, thank you very much Rachael, and I can personally highly recommend Paving Ways, it was just what I needed.

Our third speaker on this topic is Justine from Ted Noffs PALM. PALM offers residential treatment for young people age 13 to 18, Justine, if a parent learns that drug use has become problematic for their young person how can they support them to engage with your service.

Justine (Ted Noffs PALM): I think most importantly, it's been mentioned here a couple of times tonight, and that is conversations. Talking, patience, perseverance, even though that you may feel absolutely frightened and out of your depth, just talking to your child and finding out they don't always tell you the exact truth, or all truth, but just trying to gauge and find out where they're at. What issues they have and then, you know, young people are usually at a precontemplative or contemplative, thinking about it, stage.

And so for us to get young people into our program there's a few different ways, and one is, I'm always very open to a parent coming and doing a service visit and having a walk through. I held a group here when I first started a year and a half ago and I said to the young people, what is it that scares you about rehab? And they go, because we thought it was going to be a psych ward. We thought it was going to be like a hospital. We thought that you guys locked us up and never let us go. So there's a lot of fear and a lot of myths that run around I think going to a rehab.

Another one was that they thought they had to stay for three months. Well that's not true. So having chats, I think being open to talking to you know, your child. We're very open to having them come through here for a walk through visit.

I also have a site video which I can email to different services or to parents, and you can sit your child down and show them a video what PALM is about, and that really decreases a lot of fears for the young person. Yeah I think just basically like what I said just being supportive and just trying to be there for them.

Roberta (EPIC): That's great, thanks Justine it sounds like planting the seed of that idea is often the best way to start.

So back to you Helen, and as we asked earlier of Sarah Ryan and Anthony, what's one nugget of wisdom or hope that you can share with parents and carers on the webinar tonight for those who might be experiencing alcohol and other drug issues, criminal activity, or a young person who's not not coming home when they should be, or at all?

Helen (Streetwork): I think the key piece of information is demonstrate your love there and then and support, support and keep supporting them. And it's not the time or the place to do that in the police cell. So um I think young people when they're in a spot of bother with the police need to know that you are their support. So if for any reason you can't do it, you can encourage the police to contact our advocacy hotline because we'll send out a volunteer who will do it, just in your absence so that, you know, you may think that you don't you won't be able, you know, you might say something that will get your young person into more trouble. They'll do it independently so support, support and keep supporting and just show them that you love them and you're there for them.

Roberta (EPIC): That's great. Thanks Hellen, lovely. Rachael, did you have any nuggets of hope?

Rachael (SDECC): My little nugget is that we can't stop you feeling fear but getting support can help you to be more effective.

Roberta (EPIC): Brilliant, that's fantastic, and Justine lastly from you.

Justine (Ted Noffs PALM): Never ever ever give up hope. You know young people make numerous mistakes in their young lives however, they do learn a little lesson each and every time. Kindness was mentioned at the beginning by you Madeleine and I can't express that enough. Kindness, love, patience, perseverance, hanging in there.

Roberta (EPIC): That's brilliant, thank you very much. It's some yeah really lovely words and some great guidance there tonight, so thank you Madeleine over to you.

Madeleine (EPIC): And I'm just going to bounce back over to Siba, who's going to our final discussion with which is disengaged from school. So I'll just mute and hand it over to Siba.

Siba (EPIC): Thank you very much Maddie and Roberta. Extremely topical with a report that's just been published indicating there is 39% disengagement from school. And we have some amazing people who can shed some light and hopefully help parents who've dialled in tonight understand this better.

Lucy, Katheryn and Samantha, where we're talking about school disengagement, school refusal, school avoidance, school can't, as some people would term them. These are just some of the names being used. Basically it's school nonattendance.

Statistics are staggering, and but they're not emotional, statistics address numbers, at the end of it, it is us living with a young person who's struggling to go to their school and to engage with these activities and with everything that school life brings, this becomes very stressful for the whole family. Society has certain expectations of parents as well as their young people and when they are not met, there is friction, there is anxiety, there is guilt, there's confusion, even shame. How can we help?

Can I please start with Lucy. As a school student support officer in a local high school, and a parent, you have a window of perspective to look into the schools and the students and the families. What are your top tips for parents if their young person is not wanting to go to school anymore?

Lucy (KHS SSO): Well thank you for the opportunity to offer something here, because I think it's probably such a scary time when your young person decides to come home and shares that they're really struggling to go to school. And it can look very different for different students, so for example some may find that they are creating an illness in themselves, and that their level of anxiety is increasing so much because they're finding it hard to tell you they just have very physical symptoms. And others, it comes across as behaviour, where they just are doggedly refusing to go to school.

Either way, for a parent at home it's incredibly frustrating because you may have a job to go to yourself, and then you have to figure out actually how on earth do I, you know, manage this situation? And sometimes you can have gone to work before your child goes to school and think that they're at school and then get the message from school saying your child is not in period one, and that's the first indication that you have, that your child isn't at school. And it's a real juggle for working parents.

It's a real juggle to try and figure out actually what's going on, and the danger, because we could just say oh it's just a couple of days, or they need a mental health day. But the challenge is that for each day they're late or each day they have off, it adds up and actually turns out to be quite a lot at the end of a year, so they don't very often just not turn up. It starts with being late for school, you know missing home group or missing first period or coming in part way through first period.

So there are quite a few warning signs before there's an absolute no, I'm not going to school now. The challenges that are around it mean that they can sometimes lose where they are in the class, and then they feel ashamed because they're not keeping up, and they don't know what they're talking about or they've missed some key information in maths. And so sometimes it's actually difficult to get into that class which makes them miss the class more, which makes them fall behind more. And sometimes it's peers, you know, if you are not totally connected with your peers it actually makes it really difficult to want to be at school because you don't have that connectedness.

There are lots of different ways I would suggest people go about actually trying to get themselves back and one of them is very early communication with the school. Your first point of contact would be your head teacher of well-being or the deputy for your year group. Obviously the SSO might be someone the young person could go to.

And remember that it's not all or nothing you don't have to be at school the whole day or not at all. They can actually work with you to find a plan to help your young person get back to school. They'll be asking, is it about uniform? Is it about assessments? Is it about presentations? But we're just really trying to get behind why they're not coming, and that conversation should start really early.

Siba (EPIC): Perfect, thank you very much for that Lucy. So my takeaway from that, start noticing the signs. It is not a problem that develops overnight, you need to be in tune with what's happening with your young person and once you find those signs you then engage with the school who will develop a plan because it's not an all or none kind of situation. Thank you very much for that.

I'd like to move to Sam from Youth Up Front which supports young people that are disengaged with schools by providing them engaging programs such as K9 assisted learning, skills for life and skills for work. What positive steps or mindsets can you suggest for parents to support their young person if they suspect or they appear to be disengaging from school?

Samantha (YUF): Thanks Siba. I think for us some advice, and not misalign to a lot of things that have already been shared, I think, is starting that conversation early, noticing the signs. I think what we find is a lot of parents who end up reaching out to us, reach us at a point where they have been consumed and they're at I guess, a point that in their parenting, feel once their kids have hit high school, that there's less of a role for them to play. And I think that's just a natural kind of transition from when you've gone from primary to secondary, and you're not volunteering at the canteen anymore, and you're not running around, and they're a little bit more self-sufficient.

Something that I'm very passionate about at the moment is the current perfect storm that we have that's post COVID, where kids in year five six seven and eight, those key transitional years have not had enough eyeballing time from educators, from parents, from everyone in the community, and what it's meant is it's created a huge amount of pressure in the education space. There's current pressures on families at home. The term we've heard from a lot is that parents they have reached their parenting limit. As far as knowing what they can and can't do.

So I think being able to reflect and look at how you can go back to good role modelling and everything from phones down when you're at home, being present for your young person when you're at home, going back to routine that's a massive thing for us.

We're very passionate with our programs that unless it's got something to do with danger, we don't change anything within our programming structure or expectations of young people unless it's at the end of the year when we review. So unless it's a safety thing we know young people talk and they talk more than ever now with social media. They share about programs and experiences from service to service. So they're very quick to be able to circulate a negative experience if they haven't engaged well or you know, they've trusted someone to refer them somewhere. And in the same breath too, they also trust the good stuff that gets circulated around, so you know, for us what we found is making sure we stick to the expectations and I think our advice to parents has always been around making sure you too stick to expectations.

And sometimes, at the moment might be really frustrating and you want to just slam the book down and you know, pull privileges, but sometimes it's just worth taking a day and saying look, I'm not really happy with that now, I think there's time for us to talk about your needs and my needs, but for today we'll wear it. As long as they're obviously not in danger, the conversation continues tomorrow, and we start by relooking what your needs are and what our needs are. And that it's constantly evolving.

So I think, you know, that's the one thing I've found with what we've experienced in working with young people, is that I think largely, and it's you obviously aligned to EPIC, is that as parents, we're ill equipped, but I guess our parents were ill equipped too for what they went through. So it's just a, it's a different type of ill equipped, I think we've got a lot of technology challenges, we've got a lot of social emotional challenges.

For us in the time that I've been with the organisation, complex has become more complex, you know before you might have one or two challenges that a young person was facing. We did self assessments with young people and we looked at goals. Now it's really hard to refine it down to two or three key things to focus on because there's so much noise and so much busy for young people.

So to what Lucy was saying, I think being able to help young people by role modelling, showing them good examples and helping them see how you can simplify and quieten some of that noise so that they can refocus on the things are important. So whether that is good habits at home, whether it's sleep, looking after themselves, or even just having good communications, going for a walk with a mum or a dad, you know once a week to be able to just talk about stuff. That's making it normal, because once they've jumped ship from that space and I mean not jump ship as in become a teenager and you know just let loose and didn't pick up, but where they've disengaged, you have to work 10 times harder to bring them back into that circle of trust. For them to understand that you are there, not just as an authority figure, or something like that. As a parent, you're there to help them. And it is a very fine line between being a parent and a friend, and I think sometimes that's where it's challenging with this generation. We want to help them but I think with all of the other things that are at play sometimes that can get a little bit out of control quite quickly.

Siba (EPIC): So perfect, thank you very much for that. I believe your message is clear, and has been echoed before, so be a good role model, be present, pick your battles and perhaps think of every day as a new way. And it's something that Madeleine was passionate about when we started EPIC. We are the first responders and we are the anchor, so if we are floating then it's very hard to help our young ones.

Cool Katheryn, I'd like to move on to you and ask you, as the work you do as a counsellor to vulnerable young people, I'm wondering if you can shed some light and provide some strategies that you found helpful to support young people who are disengaging from school.

Kathryn (MA): Acceptance is possibly one of the biggest words. Listening, empathy and just you know letting them have their time to speak, and also to discuss the vulnerability of parents.

I've often said to young people parents aren't given a manual when you're born, they're learning as much as you are learning and they're doing the best they can. So just normalising parents make mistakes, children make mistakes, and it's okay.

Again it's a constant thing keeping the communication open and remember, these young people, adolescence is a time of intense brain rewiring. Going from a child's brain where you just soak up everything you hear, see, taste. You then enter a phase between the ages 15 and 24 where the brain is going through a huge construction period. And this is when we actually are being pruned and we're losing connections so we can develop better connections. Faster connections, and to develop a rational brain, and an independent brain that takes us through to adulthood. And as a result of this complete reconstruction, a lot of things like an increase in impulsiveness with little or no reflection on their behaviour, experience of intense mood swings that can be, you know, rewiring of the brain.

But it also can be hormones. They rely on the emotional brain rather than the frontal, rational, frontal lobe, because at the moment that is really where the work's happening. They have difficulty reading social situations, communicating with others, especially the opposite sex, and they can be emotionally vulnerable. And you know, we have to hear that from them, and understand that from them, and normalise it. I understand, I see that, I hear it, and I get it, and you're not different to everyone else.

Their self-esteem and self-worth can be very, very low, I try to work on all their values and all the beautiful parts of them. I use a lot of love in my words, and praise. And if they say something that sounds mature or something, I'll jump on that so you just reinforce that they are fine, independent young people. They're just struggling at the moment.

I'm sure a lot of all of our adolescence when they grunt and they, stuff like that, you think where the hell has my child gone? Well this again is this restructuring part of the brain, and they need love more than ever in this time because it's so freaking confusing for them. You hear about these tragic accidents where adolescents are driving, and we all go God, what were they thinking? Well the fundamental point is they weren't, they were having fun. They weren't thinking of the consequences, because that part of the brain is being rewired and you know, so unfortunately there's a time where their brain just isn't working properly and they're trying to learn so much as well.

So the way I'd like to approach it is suggest that we use words of suggestion and not direction. I take the judgement out of everything, avoid shame based language, encourage thinking and making choices of their own. Choose the right time to talk and use door openers like if they obviously are not in the mood don't go there just wait. Never argue, I mean, I know, yeah, try not to argue. Try not to raise your voice, because you raise your voice they raise their voice and it just continues so time out, come back when you're both calm. Imagine how they see the world.

And there's just so much negativity and frightening news out there which impacts on these kids. You know imagine seeing these wars and stuff like that and saying yeah it kind of really scares me as well. So just honesty and open communication.

But trust me there'll be crap days when we do yell. If you think I bought my child up, my 24-year-old daughter up, with all my suggestions you'd be wrong. But she's a beautiful, tattoo covered, punk rocker who's incredibly artistic and highly intelligent. But still struggles, and still needs her mum and dad in her corner with no judgement.

And just listen and love and, I know there are days you could love a chair more, but you know, just say try and use a lot of love language and support language and hopefully, you know, that'll help a little bit with these young people's self-esteem and self worth.

Siba (EPIC): Cool, thank you very much for that Katherine, and if I'm hearing you correctly going forward, because I definitely have a daughter very similar to yours just younger, we still got time to go from now onwards, I will try and imagine under construction, hopefully that will help me and. And hormones hormones hormones hormones. Surround her with love because it's the nurturing in our voice and our action that brings these kids around, not trying to up the ante with the arguments.

Fantastic, thank you very much for that. And just like we've asked our other panellists who are experts in their fields, give me your experience and your knowledge in a sentence that our audience can take away with them. A nugget, if you were, to tell them something, what would you say in one sentence, piece of advice. Can we start with you Kathryn.

Kathryn (MA): Yeah I would listen, don't talk over them and wait till they're finished because the moment you talk over them you've lost them. Let them have their say. Make no judgement calls and empathy and kindness all the way.

Siba (EPIC): Amazing thank you very much for that. And Lucy, would you like to share something?

Lucy (KHS SSO): Yep, I'm going to follow on from that don't make assumptions, instead create a space that makes it safe to ask and safe to tell.

Siba (EPIC): That's really good advice from both of you, thank you very much. And last but not least Samantha please.

Samantha (YUF): So a little bit more from a parent point of view. Trust in that every day is a new day and it's easy done, but to be able to show your child that judgement is not going to carry day to day, and be able to approach a new day, no matter how hurtful or nail-biting the activities of the day before, rest assured that as has been said, if you're going to make mistakes that's fine, but as parents we’re there to be able to catch and support and help guide them in the right direction. So they learn from their mistakes.

Siba (EPIC): Thank you very much everyone. Maddie back to you.

Madeleine (EPIC): Thank you, it's wonderful information, thanks everybody. I just want to share one nugget of wisdom from EPIC, and our nugget is that please know that you're not on this journey alone, and for peer support or just friendships, know who's in your corner. Reach out to them and find out who you can trust. That's one big thing on the journey that we've had from the EPIC crew is you're not alone, reach out, share the load.

Madeleine (EPIC): Thank you, it's wonderful information, thanks everybody. I just want to share one nugget of wisdom from EPIC, and our nugget is that please know that you're not on this journey alone, and for peer support or just friendships, know who's in your corner. Reach out to them and find out who you can trust. That's one big thing on the journey that we've had from the EPIC crew is you're not alone, reach out, share the load.

I want to quickly take this opportunity to let everybody know of the upcoming things that EPIC has. We'd love to see you. We're having a little walk on Sunday the 19th of November at 2pm, if it rains there's a café, we'll make sure that we've got shelter and we'll just have coffee and cake instead. So that's at North Narrabeen, I will send an email with a link to all of these events but we would love to see you there and if you do want to come it would be good to if you registered just so that we know how big a piece of cake, big the cake will need to be.

And the other three things are the next three Mondays we have more interactive webinars. We've got Nick Kenny from KYDS doing from Warriors to Warriors, that's next Monday. The following Monday we have Ripple Learning and they're doing the Conflict Resolution Skills. Really really highly recommend, we've had them do it before and they help you with the science behind the reactions and not reactions and things like that. And then our final one on the 4th of December is the wonderful Josie Wild who helps us understand the vagus nerve and to help us move into the festive season with Mind Body regulation. So I highly recommend that you have a look into these parents, non-parents, everybody welcome. It's really worth doing so,

I do say to everybody, the audience as well as the panellists, thank you. Like really, thank you it is a very supportive community and really just having been here for only two years, it's very very welcoming. I encourage all parents to reach out and know that there is support within our community.

I thank also the City of Ryde Council who have supported this webinar. So thank you, we are getting support from councils and other spaces as well they're recognising the work that all these organisations are doing within our community. So just lots of thank yous really!

I have a survey here and that'll also be on the email. It's one of those things that we link on to the end of these so it's just so that we can make events more useful or any topics that you feel that you might want to hear about so please fill in the survey just so that we can learn more and how we can support everybody. So, yay happy birthday us, and thank you everybody. Thanks so much. Good night and see you soon.