Grandparents - Community Alchemists

This is a project to train 50 grandparents as community facilitators. They will be trained across six local government areas and will work alongside local government staff to deliver local programs.

The method of delivering these projects will be implemented in four stages:

Stage 1 - Identifying and training the grandparents
All interested in training as community facilitators will have police checks undertaken before they are accepted into the program. The training will be delivered via a program covering the following:

Training Session 1  Setting the scene and bonding the team

§  A guest speaker will outline issues affecting families in   Australia

§  A speaker from each local government will outline the sorts of programs/priorities for their area 

Training Session 2  The Life skills

§   Each participant will engage in a self-evaluation and will be assisted to develop a program for strengthening their skills

§   This session will also focus on the most important life skill of communication

Training Session 3   Working with families with

special needs

§   Children and young people with disabilities

§   The importance of early intervention in literacy problems

§   Single parent families

§   How to mentor a young person and foster their skill development

§   Trainees will be asked to nominate areas in which they would particularly like to work and will be expected to make a commitment to working as part of the larger team

 

Stage 2 - Placements in the field
The participating local governments and the trained grandparents assigned to them will identify a range of projects in which grandparents will play a key role. 

During this stage all the grandparents will be visited at the site of their community projects. 

 

 Stage 3 - Launch of the Grandparents as Community Alchemists Manuals
Each local government area will be invited to conduct a launch of The Grandparents as Community Alchemists Manual  and present the outcomes of the project to their local community. 

 

Stage 4 - Life skills

This project uses a multi disciplinary approach involving all generations from grandparents through to grandchildren and having paid employees and unpaid employees working as equal partners.  This project is designed to empower people to improve their own lives through strengthening their capabilities in the range of enterprising life skills such as abilities to:

 

Communicate...... using speaking, writing, listening and empathising skills with a wide variety of people 

 

Work in a team... sometimes as small as a workmate but at other times as large as the wider community

 

Prioritise and Plan.. making personal working priorities and developing a plan to be able to achieve them