National evaluation (2004–2008) of the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy 2004–2009

2. Background

2.1 Stronger Families and Communities Strategy
2.2 Communities for Children
2.3 Local Answers
2.4 Invest to Grow

2.1 Stronger Families and Communities Strategy

The Stronger Families and Communities Strategy (SFCS) 2004–2009¹³ was an initiative of the Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA). It had a specific early childhood focus, targeting support to children aged 0 to 5 years and their families. It contained four strands:

Communities for Children (CfC)
Invest to Grow (ItG)
Local Answers (LA)
Choice and Flexibility in Child Care.

The strategy aimed to help families and communities:

build better futures for children
build family and community capacity
support relationships between families and the communities they live in
improve communities’ ability to help themselves.

The national evaluation was designed according to the outcomes framework developed by FaHCSIA. This framework was structured around the four priority areas of the National Agenda for Early Childhood:

healthy young families
supporting families and parents
early learning and care
child-friendly communities.

It also contained a fifth priority area specifically related to the CfC initiative: family and children’s services working effectively as a system.

The national evaluation of SFCS, which occurred between 2004 and 2008, sought to answer the following questions:

Have outcomes for children and families improved as a result of the SFCS?
What lessons have been learnt on how to achieve and sustain better outcomes for children aged 0 to 5 years and their families/communities?
Is early investment effective in terms of cost and outcomes for children?
For which children, families or communities was it effective?
What aspects of the SFCS were effective?
How effectively were resources used?
Did SFCS achieve its objectives?

This section describes the three initiatives of SFCS 2004–2009. Section 3 describes the methodologies used in the evaluation.

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2.2 Communities for Children

Under the CfC initiative, non-government organisations (NGOs) were funded as Facilitating Partners in 45 community sites around Australia to develop and implement a strategic and sustainable whole-of-community approach to early childhood development in consultation with local stakeholders.

In implementing their local initiatives, Facilitating Partners established CfC committees with broad representation from stakeholders in their communities. The Facilitating Partners oversaw the development of community strategic plans and annual service delivery plans with the CfC committees and managed the overall funding allocations for the communities. Most of the funding was allocated to local service providers known as Community Partners, who delivered the activities specified in the community strategic plans and service delivery plans.

Examples of activities implemented in the sites include:

home visiting programs
early learning and literacy programs
early development of social and communication skills
parenting and family support programs
child nutrition programs
community events about the importance of children, families and the early years.¹⁴

According to the SFCS logic model, service effectiveness was dependent not only on the nature and number of services, but also on seamless, coordinated service delivery. Thus, the CfC effort was devoted both to providing new services and to increasing service coordination and cooperation. CfC was implemented in an innovative way, via the Facilitating Partner model.¹⁵ This lead agency approach, where an NGO acted as a broker in engaging the community in the establishment and implementation of CfC, differed from traditional funding models where governments directly contract service providers. The logic model of CfC was based on the assumption that the Facilitating Partner model would improve services and service coordination in CfC communities, ultimately improving outcomes for children and families.

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2.3 Local Answers

The LA SFCS program funded 616 small-scale projects through five funding rounds. Projects were designed by local, community-based organisations and communities. The overall aims of LA included:

building effective parenting and relationship skills
building opportunities and skills for economic self-reliance in families and communities
strengthening support to families and communities by delivering better services and addressing unmet needs through building partnerships between local services
assisting young parents to further their education or gain access to training and other services facilitating the transition to employment
assisting members of the community to get involved in community life through volunteering, mentoring young people, and training to build community leadership and initiative.

The initiative funded a diverse range of projects, some of which focused on early childhood, parenting and family relationships, and others which concentrated on mentoring, leadership, volunteering and community-building.

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2.4 Invest to Grow

The ItG SFCS initiative funded 26 established and developing early intervention programs to help families, professionals and communities improve outcomes for young children. This included funding for early childhood programs and for the development of tools and resource materials to be used by families, professionals and communities supporting families and young children. Like CfC, ItG had a prevention and early intervention focus.

The program aimed to develop the Australian evidence base around these issues and support the expansion of successful program models. To do so, projects were funded to engage local evaluators. Local evaluation reports were analysed for the final ItG national evaluation report provided to FaHCSIA.¹⁶

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