Kinship Carers Victoria podcast series Kinship Carers Victoria

In this podcast, director of Grandparents Victoria and Kinship Carers Victoria Ann McLeish speaks with Trevor Cobbold, national convener of Save our Schools. Before retiring, Trevor was an economist with the Australian Government’s Productivity Commission and its predecessors for over 30 years.
Trevor talks us through the economic and structural inequality in our education system, in particular the under-funding of public schools in Victoria. 

In this video/podcast Director of Kinship Carers Victoria, Anne McLeish, and lawyer Fleur Ward talk about the complex and vexed issue of family reunification for carer families.
They speak in detail about the reunification provisions in the Children, Youth and Families Act (Vic) and how the current one-size-fits-all foundation of these provisions could mean that they are not serving their intended purpose. The rights of carers to access information contained in children’s court orders is also clarified.

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 McLean of Cybersafety Solutions answers these and many other questions around helping children and young people to navigate the online world safely. Susan is acknowledged as Australia’s foremost expert in the area of cyber safety and young people.  

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 Victoria again to speak in depth about the effect of diet and nutrition on children with autism, ADHD, OCD and other manifestations of neurodiversity.

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 explains why the Commission conducted the report and outlines its reaction to the findings. She also discusses some of the Commission’s most pressing recommendations resulting from the inquiry.

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 trying to accept and deal with their own feelings.
In this podcast we speak with Janice Butera, specialist grief practitioner with Grief Australia, who shares with us her knowledge about grief and loss and the challenges that can occur for families when faced with loss. Janice also offers some strategies for families to use in navigating their way through these difficult periods.