Mensline response to FSP consultation 

Crisis Support Services congratulates FaHCSIA for its direction to streamline their funded programs into the new Family Support Program. The benefits of this approach are:

• It is anticipated that a streamlined approach will enable families to access more services to meet their needs and improve the lives of many Australians.
• The intake and information exchange required by programs (for funding agreements managed by the same organisation) will be simpler and easily shared without the need for families to tell their whole story to another new worker.
• The complex needs experienced by disadvantaged families will be better addressed with a range of required services.
• Best practice in different program areas will be more easily shared across other sections of the Family Support Program i.e. the recently developed tools for Father Inclusive Practice Guide and the Introduction to working with Men and Family Relationships Guide.

Several areas to address are:

1. The paper repeatedly uses the term 'families and children' to describe the target group. While this term is in current usage since the 1970's, it is also now recognised by professionals and the wider community, that the term 'families and children' primarily refers to women and children (Family Action Centre, 2009). If the new Departmental structure adopts this traditional perspective, it will lose the momentum gained over the past ten years from the Men and Family Relationships program. Men in Australia are evidenced as having a strong interest and primary involvement in family relationships.
2. Programs are most accessible when access is simple and attendance viewed as a standard activity. This is very important for some target groups, especially marginalised and vulnerable community members and men. A good approach is to build many programs around existing services. For example, childcare centres could be co-located with family support and relationship counselling programs, and often in partnership with other FSP providers.
3. The Departmental structure needs to allow for the funded support of the range of primary, secondary and tertiary based services. FaHCSIA provides a range of programs to improve the lives of Australians. These programs build stronger communities, increase social capital, work with specific target groups that could experience challenges and provide more intensive programs to support families experiencing a family or social crisis. It is important that funding agreement guidelines for telephone based phone services allow a degree of flexibility around the caller's anonymity (notwithstanding duty of care issues). These services provide immediate access, support, counselling, and referral to families, but requirements to provide identifying information may act as a barrier for callers. The full spectrum of social supports that are currently funded should be maintained in the new structure and supported through the outcome based reporting structure.

4. Many programs have been externally evaluated and recognised for their effectiveness and flexibility. These Australian programs should be utilised as examples of good practice. The range of rigorously evaluated programs need to be expanded to target groups like fathers. Many existing evaluations have not included fathers but measured improvements in mothers and called it improved 'parenting'.
5. While many programs have exit evaluations or minimal evidence of changes (such as that the parent self-reported that they were parenting differently) there is little rigorous research undertaken to identify outcomes or to examine what made the difference in the programs' effectiveness.
6. There needs to be local ownership and development of service design. FaHCSIA would be wise not to adopt a model that views one program example as the required approach for all implementation across all locations. One example of this is the Family Relationship Centre model.
7. Programs that are developed at the local level should be relevant and inclusive of all key family members. In many cases, the C4C model of locally developed programs meant that men and fathers were hardly mentioned.
8. Better auditing and compliance approaches need to be developed that cost less money and build stronger local feedback. The money saved can be reinvested back into expansion of program funding. An example of this is how organisations can independently select three regionally based organisations per year to give feedback about how well they are operating rather than FaHCSIA using accountancy auditors.

9. New areas such as father inclusive practice need to be developed beyond the VETAB level of minimal competencies and be introduced into the education/training of health, welfare & education professionals.
10. High level agreements across governments are needed to ensure that State based services are not reduced in areas where Federal Government funding is provided. The State governments now support Communities for Children funding and are adding new funding to that context.
11. Organisations need to be able to employ workers who are still obtaining their qualification. These staff may be employed in traineeships/internships or mentoring arrangements, allowing skilled community members or past clients to gain employment. The staffing standards need to allow for this flexibility.
12. The existing and newly developed competencies need to be utilised more i.e. father inclusive practice competencies and the Cert IV and Diploma in Relationship Education qualifications.

13. To reach most marginalised communities and many male clients more outreach based approaches are required. Telephone support services have a unique role to play in this arena, as they are cost effective, timely, and available after hours.

14. Ideally funding should be longer term with performance management used to review the outcomes being achieved.