National Families Week: Every Family, Everywhere

National Families Week is an annual reminder to celebrate all families, whatever form they may take.

Families have been a part of CCV’s work since 1935 when our founders, Norma Parker and Connie Moffit, saw the need for an integrated approach to working with families. In our first year of operation as the Catholic Social Services Bureau, 600 children were connected with families and kept out of orphanages.

Since then, we have continued supporting families to ensure parents have the practical tools to maintain healthy relationships so that children can have the best opportunities to thrive. When we have healthy families, we have stronger communities.

Challenges facing families today

Across Victoria, many families are currently navigating challenges that have negative impacts on mental health and wellbeing:

• Cost of living crisis making it harder for families to meet every day needs, food, housing, and paying for essential bills.
• Financial barriers to parenting, including high costs of childcare, school fees and general expenses are causing young people to reconsider having children. [SBS The Feed]
• Parenting challenges intensify in a fast-changing world, caused by a “digital gap”, with over half of parents identifying social media as their primary concern for their children’s wellbeing. [Aspire]
• Housing challenges and homelessness, where around 1.26 million low-income households were in housing stress in 2024–25. Young people aged 15 to 24 also now make up 45% of those receiving support from homelessness services. [Child poverty report]
• Mental health concerns and access to care are ranked as top issues by households. [Social Justice Stocktake]
• First Nations children continue to be disproportionately represented in out-of-home care (41% of all children in care in 2023–24). [SNAICC Report]

At CCV, we support families at every stage

We provide strategies for parents to understand themselves and their children through free parenting workshops, culturally appropriate support and mental health support services, support for separating families to ensure that the needs of the child/children are centered, workshops for couples about to embark on their life together, support groups for kinship carers, practical support for newly-arrived families to settle well in Australia, support for families experiencing homelessness and financial strain and more.

Our services aim to ensure no family falls through the cracks.

How schools can get involved

In 1986, we launched the first Family Week campaign, a fundraising and education campaign that has been running in both primary schools and high schools annually since.

You can show your support today and get involved by:

• Hosting a school fundraiser to support families
  Your school’s donations will support families directly and give hope to those experiencing homelessness, mental health issues, family separation, and those who are newly-arrived to Australia. Each year, schools join in through picnics, school activities, art shows, morning teas and more. You’re encouraged to have conversations about the diversity of families and their unique family histories, reflect on their strengths and help them gain new perspectives.

• Use our free resources for schools here
  To make participation meaningful, we’ve developed free resources designed for your classroom. This booklet includes fundraising ideas and classroom activities to support conversations about family and can be tailored to the needs of your school.

Every conversation is an opportunity to ensure that families across Victoria feel a sense of belonging and connection.