Education and Training

Helen Rimington is Drummond Street Relationship Centre’s Deputy CEO and

the Manager of the Family Promotion Unit:

This unit delivers a range of community education and psycho-educational

groups, and parenting support programs including:

· Parenting & Relationship groups and education seminars

· Specific groups for women and men

· Specific groups for complex issues such as mental illness or drug and alcohol and their impact on families,

· Specific groups for children and young people

· Parenting Support Program

For more information on our Family Promotion Unit click here

Helen has a Masters in Education and a Graduate Diploma in Adolescent Health and Welfare and has completed a Family and Adolescent Mediation course with Family Mediation Centre. Helen has developed curriculum and taught at post graduate level at Melbourne University, developed and delivered hundreds of professional development sessions while working for The Royal Children’s Hospital, the Centre for Adolescent Health beyondblue, and Jesuit Social services. Helen managed the Depression in the Workplace Program at beyondblue which entailed delivering workplace training in mental health to people from a wide variety of professions. Helen can tailor a session or full day workshop to meet the needs of your organisation. Her style is interactive and humorous with a commitment to evidence based work and the latest information.

DSRC can provide training based on most topics relating to relationships and families such as:

Looking after your relationship
Conflict resolution for couples
Assisting children with separation and divorce
Relationships and different cultures
Preparing for parenthood
Parenting for same sex couples
Returning to work
Parenting for working parents
Communicating well
Enjoying your toddler
Parenting primary school age children
Parenting adolescents
Building resilience in our children

For more information please give Helen a call on (03) 9663 6733

For access to the Groups & Seminars calendar, click here.

The Drummond Street Relationship Centre also works with beyondblue.

Helen Rimington is a beyondblue accredited National Workplace Program trainer. The beyondblue National Workplace Program is designed to increase awareness and knowledge about the most common mental health problems in the workplace and provide staff and management with increased confidence to deal with any issues arising in the workplace. Information about the program is available at http://www.beyondblue.org.au/index.aspx?link_id=4.66 and enquires for bookings are to be directed to workplace@beyondblue.org.au or contact beyondblue on 03 9810 6100.

Drummond Street Relationship Centre’s Education and Training Unit

For 6 years DSRC’s Education and Training Unit (ETU) has offered a psychodynamic couples counselling course as part of a Master of Social Work through Melbourne University which was the first of it’s kind. We have now opted for a broader approach in response to:

1. The need for policy and service responses to strengthen families given that a strongly attached family is critical to health and wellbeing. Inversely, where family breakdown occurs and where conflict and bonds are weak, members are far more likely to present a range of health risk behaviours including mental and physical health issues, and exhibit behavioural outcomes such as drug and alcohol use, antisocial behaviour, early school drop-out and early teen pregnancy.

2. A growing evidence base and effective family intervention programs across a number of sectors and across the spectrum of interventions from prevention, early intervention, treatment and maintenance programs.

3. Utilising sector expertise along with university partners. The recent recruitment of a number of key program staff with specialist family intervention and broad collaborative curriculum development and delivery expertise. In addition, DSRC has developed and belongs to a number of networks of specialist family intervention agencies and education providers who have a commitment to seeing better professional development opportunities provided to the welfare workforce.

Currently, the DSRC Education and Training Unit offers a broad selection of professional development sessions to workers in the health/welfare and family relationship fields and delivers around 14 hours of this training per month. Further, a partnership with the National Depression Initiative: beyondblue has developed and DSRC is now an accredited provider of their national Depression in the Workplace training program. With this broad focus DSRC will work with a range of partners including other service providers and academics to develop Family Intervention education for the sector.