When people think of stress, they think about a negative thing. This is because the experience of being stressed over a long period of time can be harmful and interfere with an individual's daily functioning, including their relationships, health, and mental wellbeing. However, a manageable and reasonable level of stress is helpful since it can give people the motivation and encouragement to get into action in order to achieve goals, dreams and make things happen.

In order to transform the problematic stress into a level of stress that is helpful, you need to find the balance in their lives in order to still be able to cope with the situations that are stressful but also to look after their own wellbeing in a holistic manner.

It is unavoidable to feel stress under some circumstances and in certain periods of our lives. Therefore, the best strategy is to equip yourself with the skills required to manage effectively the levels of stress.

What can be achieved through this Support Group

• Becoming aware of the physical symptoms of stress and learning strategies to reduce them
• Changing unhelpful thoughts and breaking the worry-cycle
• Discovering coping strategies that are healthier and more satisfying
• Getting a better understanding about how your lifestyle is impacting your capability to manage stress.
• Increasing self-care & self-esteem
• Learning relaxation techniques and visualizations that are helpful to address stress
• Developing your own stress management plan

Who can benefit from this support group:

• Adults and adolescents who are experiencing problematic levels of stress
• Adults and adolescents who are feeling overwhelmed and would like to learn strategies to prevent them from experiencing problematic stress

Homesickness is a reaction that is induced by being separated from the familiar environment, which usually creates challenges in diverse areas such as emotional, behavioural, somatic and social.

Every person has different skills and tools to overcome these challenges, for some people is easy to adapt to the new place whereas for others there is resistance to accept the changes which cause discomfort.

Homesickness can increase feelings of isolation, depression, anxiety, stress and can make you feel overwhelmed and hopeless.

If these feelings of homesickness impair your capacity to enjoy your life and are posing your wellbeing at risk, you may want to receive appropriate treatment in order to reduce symptoms, change unhealthy thoughts and feelings, and to have a better integration into the new community.

What can be achieved through this support group:

• Identify up to what extent the feelings of homesickness are interfering in your life
• Gain a better understanding about the reasons why you are experiencing homesickness
• Develop mechanisms to deal with these feelings
• Change unhelpful patterns regarding behaviour, emotions, thoughts
• Develop a holistic plan to help you manage homesickness
• Broaden supportive networks in order to reduce isolation

Who can benefit from this support group:

Adults and adolescents who are either:

• Migrants who have settled in Australia (New arrivals and long-term residents and citizens)
• International students and accompanying family members
• Visitors who are struggling with feelings of homesickness

The human nature is holistic, it is a system that works in perfect harmony. Body and mind are meant to keep a deep connection which ensures a good balance in life. When the emotions are negatively affecting your life, this balance is broken which usually leads to the appearance of diverse ailments.

Therefore, being able to regain the harmony in your life by understanding your emotions, integrating them into your experience of life and being able to transform unhealthy emotions into positive and healthy emotions will probably be quite rewarding for you.

As you change in the inside by healing your inner being and dealing with emotional blockages and unhealthy feelings, the outer world can also experience positive changes.

What can be achieved through this support group:

• Identifying unhelpful / unhealthy emotions
• Gaining a better understanding about the causes behind unhelpful emotions
• Understanding and clearing emotional blockages
• Finding within yourself new emotions that serve you in a healthier manner and that are in line with your desires and goals
• Empowering yourself to be able to use your capacity to create and make changes in order to guide your emotions in a way that they help you be who you truly are

Who can benefit from this support group:

• Adults who would like to understand themselves better in order to have a more enjoyable and fulfilling life

• The persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of the value others may attribute to these possessions.
• Difficulties due to strong urges to save items and/or distress associated with discarding
• Accumulation of a large number of possessions that fill and clutter active living areas so that their intended use is no longer possible”
• Symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment, including inability to maintain a safe environment for self and others*
  *Definition according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5 (DSM-5)

Group therapy provides social interactions and can be advantageous in reducing stigma and isolation, providing support and positive modelling experiences.

What can be achieved through this support group:

• Understanding about what hoarding is and its implications in your life.
• Understanding participant's emotional attachment to their belongings
• Learning new strategies on how to detach from items stored and strategies to deal with the emotional reactions that discarding items can cause
• Learning new behavioural and cognitive patterns that are healthier and allow the participants to feel empowered to make changes in their lives.
• Development and practice of sorting, organising, and decision-making skills
• Sharing experiences with others who are dealing with similar situations

Who can benefit from this support group:

• Adolescents and adults experiencing hoarding issues

Self-esteem is the level of appreciation and worthiness you feel towards yourself. Continuous lack of confidence, unhappiness and dissatisfaction with who you are is one of the most significant signs that your self-esteem may be low and that you may benefit from seeking professional help.

Other signs of low-esteem may be:

• Difficulty seeing your own strengths and positive aspects
• High levels of self-criticism
• Feelings of inferiority in relation to peers

What can be achieved through this support group:

• Understanding about what self-esteem is and how having a good self-esteem can improve your quality of life
• Identifying the underlying issues that are causing low-self-esteem
• Challenging and changing negative patterns and unhealthy thoughts such as high self-criticism, negative self-perception, constant fear of trying, helplessness, hopelessness
• Increasing your level of appreciation and worthiness
• Increasing resilience in order to develop better strategies to cope with challenging life events
• Improving life skills such as self-care, healthy communication patterns in order to enable your own personal development
• Improving your relationship with yourself and others
• Developing an interest in adopting a healthier lifestyle

Who can benefit from this support group:

• Adolescents and adults who would like to improve their self-esteem

The psychological effects of homelessness are quite complex and diverse, due to the level of vulnerability, fear and social exclusion that you have been exposed to.

Homelessness affects an individual’s functioning, it is extremely detrimental to your mental health, sense of worth, ability to form and maintain healthy relationships, and ability to deal effectively with stress.

The effects of homelessness can also inhibit your ability to utilise helpful coping strategies that would otherwise help you to break the cycle of homelessness, by developing resilience and coping skills for independent living.

Therefore, having adequate holistic support ensures that you develop the skills to address individual vulnerabilities that are increasing the risk of losing your housing, as well as to address the mental health issues that were caused or exacerbated by homelessness.

This workshop aims to promote mental wellbeing in order to help increase your readiness to be housed and to remain housed by facilitating an educational and therapeutic space where you can learn life skills and develop coping mechanisms in order to achieve a positive settlement into your new or current place.

What can be achieved:

• Identifying personal issues that are negatively impacting the ability to maintain secure housing
• Getting support from other participants who are experiencing similar situations
• Developing healthy coping mechanisms to deal with those personal issues that are impacting on the ability to maintain secure housing
• Increasing knowledge about relevant services that can provide support to establish successful tenancies
• Learning relaxation techniques in order to reduce stress and anxiety
• Developing life skills to deal with challenging situations in a healthy manner.

Who can benefit from this support group:

• People whose mental health has been affected by being homeless or who are at risk of homelessness