Kinship Carers Victoria podcast series

KCV Podcast 19 - Diet And Stress

There’s a lot of information currently available about how, what and when to eat, and some of it can be quite overwhelming and confusing.

In this podcast Kinship Carers Victoria speaks with clinical nutritionist and functional medicine practitioner Nikki Valentini, director of SuperNature Nutrition https://supernature.com.au/. Nikki explains how certain foods and nutrients have been shown to help us deal better with stress and anxiety while other types of foods and eating patterns have been linked to increases in these feelings - and even to other psychological issues and illness. The podcast also includes interviews with carers who share their relationship to food and some of their dietary patterns.

KCV Podcast 18 - Connecting With Others

Carers often mention their isolation but many of them have not developed strategies or networks to assist them in overcoming these feelings.

This podcast - as part of Kinship Care Week 2022 - provides suggestions for kinship carers on how they can form meaningful connections with friends, family, neighbours and the community to help them support their own physical and psychological wellbeing.

KCV Podcast 15 - Self-care for kinship carers and how to prevent burnout

In this podcast, KCV spoke to psychologist, lecturer and researcher Dr Melissa Weinberg, an Honorary Fellow from the Dept of Psychology at Deakin University with expertise in the science of wellbeing and resilience. Melissa speaks about the need for carers to monitor their own physical and emotional state and needs.

KCV Podcast 14 - Coronavirus and kinship carers

Director of Kinship Carers Victoria (KCV) Anne McLeish talks about the challenges faced by kinship carers during the COVID-19 lockdown and how they and the young people in their care have been coping.

KCV Podcast 13 - Sleep and wellbeing

In this podcast on sleep and wellbeing, KCV spoke to psychologist Dr Melissa Weinberg, Honorary Fellow from the Dept of Psychology at Deakin University. Dr Weinberg discusses the effects sleeping poorly or well can have on a person's physical and psychological health and suggests tips on how carers can improve their patterns of sleep and those of the children or young people in their care.

KCV Podcast 12 - Creating happiness

Dr Sanjiv Chopra is a professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School, a best-selling author and sought-after motivational speaker, who is often referred to as a ‘happiness guru’. In an episode of The Bucket Podcast (at thebucket.com) broadcast on 10 October 2019, Dr Chopra spoke about his book, The Two Most Important Days: How to Find Your Purpose and Live a Happy and Healthy Life. This KCV podcast draws both on the contents of his book and that Bucket Podcast to present evidence on how happiness can be a choice in our lives.

KCV Podcast 11 - KCV longitudinal study report

Kinship Carers Victoria recently released the eight report on their longitudinal study of kinship carer families. In this podcast, Director of KCV Anne McLeish discusses why the study was established as well as providing an analysis of the latest report findings, which show that, for the most part, kinship care arrangements for the families in the study continue to be stable.

KCV Podcast 10 - The health of children in kinship care

The health of children in kinship care is of primary concern. Resources must continually be put into finding ways to improve health care outcomes for children in out of home care. In this podcast KCV speaks with Dr Karen McLean pediatrician with the Pathway to Good Health Clinic, the Sleep Disorders Clinic, the Royal Children's Hospital, the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and the Department of Pediatrics with the University of Melbourne.