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Indigenous families and children: coordination and provision of services
Stronger Families and Communities Strategy 2004–2009

Appendix G: Interview schedule for CfC fieldwork sites

Interviewer version, includes prompts

SFCS service coordination study interview schedule for fieldwork in family study sites

Key: *underlined = key points that need to be covered

  1. What is your role here/what type of work do you do? AND/OR What kind of involvement do you have with Communities for Children?
    • FP, CCC member, funded organisation, other contact
  2. Have the activities funded through Communities for Children changed since last year? What brought these changes?
    • new services funded in the last year
    • services discontinued in the last year
    • *priority needs being met/changed
  3. What impact do you think Communities for Children is having here?
    • has it changed the way you think about or work with the community
    • impact on how services work together
    • on individual services (service quality, access and reach)
    • on the community as a whole
    • *on children and families
    • *on children and families from specific groups (Indigenous, culturally and linguistically disadvantaged, disabled, other hard-to-reach people, fathers)
  4. In what ways is Communities for Children working well in this site?
    1. service provision
      • service quality and access
      • *identifying and engaging hard-to-reach families (who do you define as hard-to-reach?)
      • *supporting particular client groups: Indigenous, culturally and linguistically disadvantaged, disabled, other hard-to-reach people, fathers
    2. service coordination
      • *coordination among local services
      • does CfC complement other local early years networks?
      • dynamics between NGOs and the FP agency
      • collaboration across government levels
      • *collaboration between governments, NGOs and the community
      • *coordination between specialist services (for example, Indigenous services)
    3. integration with other government programs
      • federal/state programs (refer to service mapping)
      • *are they complementary or competing?
      • any documentation?
    4. community partnership outcomes
      • *new partnerships/ways of working with the community
      • new infrastructure
    5. why? What helps it work well?
      • external factors, for example, cooperative spirit, understanding of community needs
      • the FP model (explain FP model if necessary), good leadership by the FP agency, skills of individuals
      • the CCC working well (for example, represents all relevant sectors and groups, effectively commissions services, helps services to cooperate better, little internal tension, is the key decision-making body for CfC, makes appropriate funding decisions, complements other initiatives)
      • *[Look at facilitating factors they identified last time] Have these factors continued to assist CfC in your area or have different factors become more important over time?
  5. What aspects of Communities for Children do you think are not working as well as they could?
    1. service provision
      • service types, quality and access
      • engaging hard-to-reach families
      • servicing particular client groups (culturally and linguistically disadvantaged, disabled, Indigenous, other hard-to-reach people, fathers)
    2. service coordination
      • coordination among local services
      • does CfC compete with other local early years networks?
      • dynamics between NGOs and the FP agency
      • collaboration across government levels
      • collaboration between governments, NGOs and the community
    3. integration with other government programs
      • federal/state programs (refer to service mapping)
    4. community outcomes
      • ways of working with the community
      • partnerships, service agreements
      • Why? What prevents it from working well?
      • external barriers, for example, lack of cooperation, long distances, lack of resources
      • the FP model, the FP agency
      • staff problems (for example, lack of staff, high staff turnover)
      • lack of leadership
      • CCC problems (for example, not representative, ineffective at commissioning services and at facilitating cooperation, internal tensions, only rubber-stamp decisions, makes inappropriate funding decisions, competes with other initiatives)
      • [Look at barriers they identified last time] Did you manage to overcome [x,y,z] problems/barriers during the last 12 months? How? Have any new barriers arisen? What resources would you need to address these? (staff, training resources and so on)
  6. How well does the FP model work compared to other funding models (direct funding, collaborative arrangements)?
    • is practical experience with the model different to expectations?
    • *What changes to the model would strengthen
      1. service delivery and coordination
      2. *outcomes for families and children from specific groups (Indigenous, culturally and linguistically disadvantaged, disability, other hard-to-reach people, fathers)?
  7. What is the likely longer-term impact of CfC on this site?
    • service coordination, quality and reach
    • impact on services not involved in CfC
    • *sustainability (sustainability of networks without CfC?)
    • impact on community cohesiveness and ‘child friendliness’
    • *outcomes for children and families
  8. If you were implementing CfC, what would you do differently?
    • For example, the FP model, the FP agency, composition or work of the CCC, boundaries of the CfC site

Any other comments?

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