Helping the Sydney community with relationships, parenting, ageing, disability, pastoral services and mental wellbeing.
The 2025 Family and Relationship Services Australia (FRSA) Conference took place at the Sheraton Grand Sydney from May 19-22, bringing together practitioners, policymakers, academics and individuals who all play a role in supporting children and families across the country.
CatholicCare Sydney was proud to be a key partner in organising and sponsoring this year’s conference. Our team played an active role behind the scenes, with Kate Dover and Melissa McSeveny serving on the national organising committee — shaping the agenda, reviewing abstracts, and chairing presentation sessions during the conference.
Our Children and Family Services team were privileged to attend the conference with a strong presence, hosting a colourful stall to showcasing our work and delivering two insightful presentations.
Practice Managers, Andree Borc and Samantha Jones, presented a session on KKIM last Tuesday afternoon; our program that’s delivered across six states that helps parents to see their separation through their children’s eyes.
“A great gathering across the sector at the FRSA National Conference”, says Andree, “Having the opportunity to showcase our work in supporting families is important, as well as connecting and collaborating for best practice.”
On Wednesday, our Evidence, Impact & Research Manager, Melissa McSeveny, and Practice Quality Lead, Courtney Jacques, presented an insightful session into our recent Family Law Service (FLS) evaluation. Our evaluation process aims to systematically capture the voices of clients and families for impact measurement and continuous improvements in FLS.
“There was excitement and curiosity from the audience at the presentation Courtney and I gave – we connected with other service providers and government partners after the presentation who are keen to learn from our work.”
Melissa also reflected on the overall conference experience:
“It was interesting to hear from other services about things working well for their clients/communities. But also refreshing and very useful to hear from some services who presented on learnings from programs that hadn’t been successful and spoke about why and how they might be improved by others looking to run similar programs.
Featured speakers at the conference included Professor Sharon Bessell, The Hon. Justice Thomas Altobelli AM, Steph Tisdell, and newly appointed Minister for Social Services, The Hon. Tanya Plibersek. In her remarks, she reflected on the positive progress the sector has made and encouraged attendees to take pride in their impact — even when it’s hard to see when you’re in the day-to-day flow.
To learn more about our Children and Family Services, please visithttps://www.catholiccare.org/family-youth-children or get in touch by calling 13 18 19.
