Kinship Carers Victoria podcast series

Children and young people spend significant amounts of their lives online in the cyber world, but how do we ensure that their online experiences are safe? There are so many issues to consider: how do you tackle cyber bullying, deal with the threat of grooming of children, what is the right amount of screen time, how do you create a safe gaming environment? In this podcast Susan McL

What is neurodiversity? This is a term describing the idea that people experience and interact with the world in many varied ways but there is no one ‘right’ way of thinking, learning, or behaving, with these differences not viewed as deficits. Nikki Valentini, Clinical Nutritionist, functional medicine practitioner, and director of SuperNature Nutrition, joined Kinship Carers

In this podcast we speak with Victoria’s Commissioner for Children and Young People, Liana Buchanan, about the Commission’s ‘Let Us Learn’ inquiry report, tabled in the Victorian parliament in November 2023. The report shows that the education engagement and outcomes for children and young people in out-of-home care trail significantly behind those of their peers. Liana exp

Throughout our lives, grief is an unavoidable and essential part of what it is to be human. When individuals and families experience a loss, every member of the family can feel and process their grief in different ways. Grandparents, parents or carers face the difficulty of managing their caring role while knowing how to help children understand their grief – all whilst also tryi

Access or contact visits are where children in kinship care can spend time and engage with members of their biological or extended family. The visits can be formal or informal, and sometimes they are supervised by a professional, such as a child protection worker or agency worker, or even by the kinship carer themselves. In this podcast, we spoke with Adam Lyons, Managing Director

What does the latest research tell us about the benefits of play for the wellbeing of children and young people? The February 2023 edition of the Royal Children’s Hospital National Child Health Poll – Australian Families: How we play – has produced some findings of great interest to kinship carers.In this podcast we speak with paediatrician, researcher and child health advoca

What are the latest trends in nutrition? What does recent research say about what and how we should eat? And what the children in our care, in particular those children with neurodevelopmental disorders, should eat? In this podcast we speak again with Nikki Valentini, Clinical Nutritionist, functional medicine practitioner and director of SuperNature Nutrition on a broad range of c

In this podcast we speak with Director of Kinship Carers Victoria, Anne McLeish, who explains the importance of learning and development for kinship carers. We also interview one Victorian carer, who tells us about the types of things she realised she needed to learn and the support she sought out once she became a kinship carer. And we hear from Adam Lyons, Managing Director of La

Sleep plays a vital part in our wellbeing - so how do we get the right amount of it? Clinical psychologist Dr Damon Ashworth, author of Deliberately Better Sleep, talks with KCV about the three major factors affecting our sleep and issues such as waking up at night, napping, the right amount of sleep and the long-term effects of not getting enough sleep. This podcast also includes

In a recent survey on stress and wellbeing conducted by the Australian Psychological Society, four in five participants found activities like listening to music and spending time on a hobby were effective ways of managing stress. Finding an enjoyable pastime can also enhance wellbeing, improve social connections, and even stave off depression or anxiety.  In this latest car