6. Discussion
This report provides an overview of the early implementation of the CfC initiative. It shows that CfC has been targeted at disadvantaged (although not the most disadvantaged) communities in Australia. It also shows that although there has been some history of working together between agencies, in most cases this had been embryonic.
The report highlights the considerable challenges faced by policy makers, managers and practitioners attempting to implement this complex and ambitious Government strategy. Overall the findings indicate that the challenges have been addressed, and CfC has made a significant impact on the delivery and configuration of services in the 45 sites in which it is operating. There is universal agreement with the basic principle underlying this initiative - that coordination of services and community engagement are crucial for the effective provision of services to children in their early years and their families. The evaluation has shown that in most sites CfC provided 'step change' in the level of awareness and recognition of the need for agencies to work more closely together. It has also already funded many innovative services.
On the other hand, the difficulties have also been very considerable. Although this report highlights many barriers to effective implementation of CfC, it is clear that there are four underlying challenges which underpin most of the concerns expressed by respondents:
- The short term nature of the funding
- The trade off between local determination/empowerment and accountability/prescription
- Engagement of the States and Territories at a strategic level
- Difficulty engaging with 'hard to reach' groups in the communities.
For some sites, an additional issue relates to the definition of the site itself - either its size (encompassing several communities), its shape (not being coterminous with 'natural' community boundaries and/or administrative boundaries) or its demography. This raises issues regarding the definition of 'community intervention' in the Australian context.
All the CfC initiatives had made considerable efforts to deal with these issues, as is described above, and in most cases they have been relatively successful. However there are lessons to be learned for the implementation of place based programs in the future. In particular there is some consensus that these will benefit considerably from
- Longer funding period
- Longer lead-in times
- More flexible use of resources so that funding can be more easily adjusted throughout the life of the program
- Engagement of State and Territory policy makers in the initiative
- A better understanding and communication of what is required in each site, and what is discretionary
Successful implementation of the initiative seems to depend considerably on the skills and networking abilities of the FP, and in particular the Project Manager. The optimal model for CfC seems to be one in which the Project Manager has a history of positive engagement in the local community, and has built up trust and respect of local services. This needs to be combined with access to the resources of large NGO - procurement, accounting etc - which are essential for running a complex program such as CfC. However the strength of the FP model is also its major weakness. In sites where the Project Manager is weak, or more likely, where there have been changes of Project Manager, this has caused major disruption to the Initiative. This also is a concern for sustainability because Project Managers are unlikely to remain in post until the conclusion of the funding period. Ultimately CfC will have to develop a model which is embedded in the local service provision and not dependent for its progress on the Project Manager.
It is important to remember that this is a 'baseline' report, which is intended only to address the initial implementation of CfC, and so all the conclusions and findings herein should be considered as tentative. Nevertheless we believe that there are some important lessons from this stage of the evaluation which will be important learnings not only for CfC but for all place based initiatives.