Build Your Family Toolbox: Living Skills Expo

Build Your Family Toolbox: Living Skills Expo

CYCLOPSACT and the Litmus Program are looking for services to participate in a skills expo for Young Carers throughout the ACT and their family's. The event will be held during Mental Health Week 2011 and focuses around a central idea of building a family toolbox.

A family toolbox is a resource that contains information specific, relevant and useful to each family. The idea evolves from recipe books or photo albums that have been passed down to each generation. With this in mind, the family toolbox can contain information that will support each member including the family unit, across its generations.

The content is infinite and can evolve, as the family evolves. The underlying idea however will not change, and that is to have all this information organised, available and transferable when the time is right.

All services embody a range of skills, tools, information, and experience which they use to meet the needs of their clients. With this expo, we are hoping to provide a forum for services to showcase these skills, and share it with families, where a family member may be experiencing disability, illness, or drug and alcohol related issues. The information could fall under any of the following umbrellas:
* Emergency planning and first aid
* Effective cleaning strategies and household tasks.
* Living skills
* Family connectedness
* Community connectedness
* Mental Health and wellbeing
* Family Finances
* Social and recreational
* Time management
* Planning and goal setting
* Nutrition and healthy living

Examples of this could how to: make afternoon tea; manage the family finances; provide first aid; practice self care; save for the family holiday; tackle a homework assignment.

Expo: Held in the style of an expo, representatives from a variety of services will showcase their knowledge and skills, whilst providing a forum for families to sit down and discuss information. The event aims to go beyond service promotion; with families being encouraged to partake in activities which will better equip them with a broad range of skills and knowledge, strengthen the family unit, encourage communication, engage with their personal interests, and understand their role within the family. Further, participants will be able to collect specific information to include in their family toolbox which will help them meet the challenges of daily life as individuals and as a family unit.

The date, time and venue:
The Holt Community Hub
Thursday the 13th of October (during Mental Health Week and school holidays).
Time: 3.30pm- 7pm

Every service has something unique that can assist individuals and their families to get back on the feet, to cope and to flourish. If your service would like to be a part of this event please contact Canon or Tammy on 6278 8444 for more information. Alternatively you can write to canon.hanly@anglicare.com.au .