Finding Safety, Support and New Confidence Together

This South Otago whānau faced big changes - marriage, a new baby, and supporting older children, while their 14-year-old daughter was caught in an unhealthy relationship. Feeling overwhelmed, they were referred to Anglican Family Care. Through home visits, practical guidance, and the Circle of Security parenting framework, social worker Jasmin helped the family build trust, improve communication, and create a safer home.

As a result, their daughter left the unhealthy relationship, and the whānau gained confidence, resilience, and tools to manage future challenges. This journey shows how timely support and strong parenting strategies can transform stress into stability and hope.

In their own words, this whānau shared their journey with us, reflecting on the challenges they faced and the strength they found through support from our Family-Centred Service programme in South Otago.

“We were referred to Anglican Family Care (AFC) at a time in our lives when a lot of change was happening. We had recently gotten married and began living together, then our baby was born two months later.

This was a wonderful blessing but a huge upheaval for my two older daughters, aged 9 and 14.

Our 14-year-old daughter started dating a boy around the same time and unfortunately that relationship quickly turned into an unhealthy, controlling and abusive one. She became completely caught up in a dangerous dynamic and was spending all her time out of the house and sneaking out at night.

We were trying our best to keep her safe whilst caring for our newborn and trying to give our 10-year-old the attention she deserved also. All whilst navigating our new marriage.

Thankfully, the local police saw our need when we repeatedly called them for help to keep our daughter safe, and they referred us to AFC.

The AFC social worker, Jasmin, was an absolute Godsend for us. She came into our home and listened. She cared and she didn't judge. She was extremely knowledgeable and practical in teaching us about the Circle of Security [parenting programme] and she was quickly able to make it relevant to our family, always allowing us to reflect and bring our stories into the learning.

Each of us came from different backgrounds with different parenting styles and we hadn't yet reflected on our own experiences and how these would impact our responses to our children. We learnt to be bigger, stronger, wiser and kind and to focus on meeting our children's needs.

This was when things started to fall into place and we could see that by noticing where our children were at, what they needed, and whether we were self-regulated enough to meet that need, we were able to address the real roots of the behavioural issues and to always be a safe space for our kids.

Jasmin equipped us to parent our children in a way that suits us perfectly, aligns with our values and is so effective.

She has also inspired us to continue to connect and reflect with each other on our children's changing needs and how we meet them.

Jasmin was very practical in helping us to understand the youth justice system when it came to a point in which our daughter's ex-boyfriend was arrested, and she referred us to victim support which helped us and our daughter to feel safer. It wasn't all theory and teaching, it was relevant and practical, life-changing help.”

Our 14-year-old was able to navigate her way out of the toxic relationship and showed incredible strength and resilience in doing so, and we were able to support her and to build trust and communication so she now knows she can come to us in future.

We now have a greater understanding of being aware of our 10-year old's needs and we are prepared for any future challenges she may face, and we have learnt so much about baby development and how to apply the Circle of Security to our young son.

We are now looking forward to the future and feel secure, all thanks to the work we were able to do as a family with AFC and especially with Jasmin.