SDN response to FSP consultation 

SDN Children’s Services is a not-for-profit organisation with over one hundred year’s experience of providing services for children, families and communities. SDN Children’s Services welcomes the review of the range of family support services and the Government’s intention to bring them into a more coherent program. SDN commends the Government for working towards the development of a Family Support Program (FSP) that will “work with and support families and nurture children to enable them to better manage life’s transition and contribute to building stronger, more resilient communities”.

SDN Children’s Services supports the draft Family Support Program Governing Principles of working with the most vulnerable in the community to strengthen family relationships, foster resilience within families and communities and work in the best interest of children to create family environments where children can grow, be safe, well and happy. We also support the Key Program Requirements. We do, however, make the following comments and recommendations.

• The FSP will require a balance between Universal and Targeted Services

The FSP is particularly focused on supporting the most vulnerable families. Vulnerability is not, however, a static trait of families, rather families move in and out of vulnerability throughout out their life course. It is essential, therefore, that the FSP is built on a foundation of universal family services that are relevant, appropriate and accessible to a community. In this way, families can be referred on to specialist services if and when they require and then back into universal services when and it this is appropriate.

• The FSP will require a balance between services that (i) provide specialist services for families and which work collaboratively with other services and (ii) those that provide a range of services for families at one site.

The capacity to develop linked services that allow families to move across specialised services would in most cases be of benefit to the families and referring services. Greater collaboration between these parties has the potential to reduce red-tape, streamlining service operations and facilitating smoother transition for families across and between services. Recognition has to be made, however, of the time and resources required to be spent by services on developing greater collaboration and co-operation, and of the ways competitive tendering can jeopardise co-operation between services.

Whilst we agree that specialist services are required we do, however, suggest that there is a danger in assuming that such a model will serve all families appropriately and would argue that a mix of specialist and ‘stand alone’ services would be appropriate. For the most marginalised and disenfranchised families the establishment of trusting relationships with service providers is often difficult, and takes a great deal of time. Our experience with supporting services that work intensely with particular communities, has shown us that these services, which are usually small and have with less formal structures than larger organisations, are often the most effective at engaging the most marginalised groups. Many of these services offer a range of services at one site, so that families do not have to be referred on to ‘other’ agencies with whom they have no history and/or can be quite distrustful and reticent to engage. We have found this to be particularly so for the most marginalised of clients, namely Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and families where there is a person with a disability. Consequently, there have to be opportunities for ‘stand alone’ services to receive a far allocation of FSP funding, and accountability requirements for FSP services must reflect the diversity of needs met by the service and not assume that cross referral to another service is always necessary and/or desirable.

We need to be able to structure and restructure programs to specifically meet the diverse needs of communities and participants. One problem is that these may not fit under particular categories of service. We would therefore welcome programs built on outcome measures, not on the requirement to follow set program guidelines. Building capacities and capabilities on a strength based model requires programs that are responsive, well funded and of sufficient duration to achieve outcome goals.

• The FSP should include both larger and smaller organisations

The past few decades have seen the extended funding of larger voluntary agencies, or sometimes businesses, that offer specialised professional services. Larger organisations can provide economies of scale that enable more services to be delivered to more families at less cost. Our experiences with supporting a range of quite small agencies has shown us, however, that many of these smaller organisations have been long established and do well at developing close ties with their client groups and are often the most effective at engaging the most marginalised groups. Unfortunately, however, some smaller, highly successful organisations have not had the resources to submit high quality tenders and so have ‘missed out’ on funding, depriving their community of a valuable, highly regarded service. Therefore, we would like to be reassured that there will be awareness of the needs of smaller agencies and particular strategies put in place to ensure an ‘equal playing field’ for smaller agencies during the tendering process (see Theme 6).

• The FSP will require funds to be quarantined to work specifically with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, families and communities.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander peoples have a special place in Australian society both because they are the nation’s first peoples and because of the huge differential between outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and mainstream Australian society. Through our experiences over the past years of working with Aboriginal children and families, we recognise the different requirements for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and organisations. When funding is not especially targeted for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, however, there is a danger that funds could get diverted into ‘other’ areas. Therefore, we would recommend that a continuing Indigenous program with separate, quarantined, funding and criteria, be maintained under the new FSP, to ensure that the particular needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are met. These views are confirmed by material from FAHCSIA Occasional Paper 23 on Indigenous families and children: coordination and provision of services Stronger Families and Communities Strategy 2004–2009.

• The FSP will require close liaison with disability services.

The FSP aims to work with the most vulnerable families. One of the most vulnerable groups in society are children and adults with disabilities. We have some concerns, therefore, that disability services do not seem to be part of the FSP. We would recommend the inclusion of disability services within the FSP.

• The FSP will require a balance of services that focus on individual children and families and those with a more community focused approach.

FSP services must be child-centred and family-focused. However, it is also essential, from a human rights perspective, that there is due recognition given to the structural inequalities that impact on families’ lives. FSP services must, therefore, work towards challenging inequalities and community capacity building. The need for supporting communities, whilst particularly evident in Indigenous communities, is also evident in other seriously disadvantaged communities. Therefore we would like to see funding and outcomes based on measures of community and family well being.

• All services operating under the FSP must be required to adhere to anti-discrimination legislation

• All FSP services should provide child focused and/or inclusive services that enable children’s voices to be heard.

This is one of the Governing Principles of the FSP. We argue, however, that all FSP services should be both child focused and inclusive. That is, the ‘or’ should be removed from this statement.

• The FSP will require a whole of Government (Commonwealth, State and Local) approach that places children at the forefront of Government policy.

Finally, if we truly value children, children should be at the forefront of Government decision making - at all levels. Furthermore, there must to be a consistent and linked approach at State, Federal and Local Government level. One way to achieve this could be through the establishment of a Children’s Federal Ministry, and the development of a Children’s Charter. All Government programs, statutes etc at state and federal level should be required to undergo assessment of how these would impact on children. We believe that any society that places children at the forefront of Government decision making will build a better place for all of its citizens.

SDN Children’s Services has been providing services for children, families and communities for over a century. Over this time we have learnt a great deal about how to provide appropriate and effective services for families. In particular, SDN has several programs that offer flexible services for families and communities, and which work in collaborative ways with ‘other’ services - consistent with the FSP principles and operational framework. From our experience and learnings from delivering these programs we have identified a number of key factors that would need to be taken into account when building a flexible service model with improved service pathways and a system that adequately supports and engages both universal and targeted groups in an area.

1. Services in the FSP model will need a clear theory of change.

A critical factor for ensuring flexible service delivery that is accountable, is that services be firmly grounded on sound philosophical and theoretical understandings, evidence of “what works” in early intervention, clarity about the desired outcomes and commitment to constant internal reflection and evaluation. That is, FSP services should be able to clearly articulate and measure their “theory of change”. The process of developing a theory of change would facilitate innovative practice whilst at the same time ensuring accountability and compliance with the FSP program goals. Some of the these philosophical / theoretical elements would be, but are not limited to:

• highly accessible – appropriate, approachable, safe, affordable.
• child-centred work - where children’s opinions are actively sought, heard and responded to.
• relationships and strengths-based - working towards developing trust with families and across and between services.
• family-focused - responsive to the individual needs of families.
• aimed at community capacity building.

On-going critical reflection and evaluation takes time and skills and would require Government to:

• provide funds for services in the FSP to conduct on-going internal (as well as external) evaluation.
• require evaluation to be an aspect of successful tendering for FSP services.
• ensure funds allocated to FSP services for evaluation are expended appropriately.
• develop a FSP program wide evaluation.
• work with FSP services to ensure local evaluations are internally consistent whilst at the same time contribute to larger FSP evaluation outcomes.

The FSP must have clear outcomes for children, families and communities to which all FSP services are expected to contribute.

2. Services in the FSP will need to actively work collaboratively and cooperatively

The FSP represents an integrated approach to service delivery. A key factor in the success or otherwise of this integrated approach will be the ability of services to work collaboratively. Greater cohesion between services in the model (ie. services working toward the same goals) should facilitate the development of pathways between services. However, for services to be included in the FSP they should be:

• able to illustrate how they already work collaboratively and cooperatively with other services in a region or have a clear action plan for how they intend to do this.
• required to commit to working collaboratively with others to develop and trial innovative procedures that enable families to access multiple services from one point of entry – including procedures that make use of current ICT.

Further, the Government needs to recognise that the development of collaborative and cooperative working relationships is an on-going process that takes time, energy and effort. This will be a legitimate cost to those who deliver FSP services and must be taken into account during tendering processes.

• Collaboration can only occur where there are structures in place to facilitate and support it. Collaboration needs to involve all levels of Government and a broad representation of disciplines that work with families and services that have children as their key client. One service that has children has their key client, and which could play a major role in the FSP, are child care services. We have found, however, barriers to child care services’ participation and collaboration with other services. In particular, there is a hierarchy evident in services that support families and children which often places medical and legal services at the apex and marginalises childcare services. Child care services are often further marginalised because service operational requirements make if difficult for staff from childcare services to participate in networking opportunities (that is, to release a childcare staff member from their duty requires additional staff to ‘back fill’ them in their service and so represents a significant additional cost to services). If childcare services are to take a more effective role in the FSP, a number of strategies will need to be employed including developing a culture of respect for all services and providing funds to enable childcare services to fully participate. Moreover, Government could encourage collaborative work by providing incentives; collaboration could be a key accountability of FSP services both horizontally across services and vertically with funding bodies.
• Another challenge to collaborative and cooperative working relationships that impedes the development of pathways between services, is the competitive tendering process.

3. The FSP must be responsive and dynamic

Families’ needs fluctuate throughout their life course. Similarly community needs change over time. It is essential, therefore, if the FSP is to remain relevant and appropriate, that it respond to these changing needs:

• Both universal and targeted services must be available in all regions.
• To be part of the FSP, services in each region should be able to demonstrate how they ‘fit’ into the larger picture of service delivery in their region by responding to local needs and / or gaps in their area.

To ensure they are filling a gap, FSP services will require accurate information about their geographic area. Therefore:

• To be part of the FSP, services should be required to consult with local communities and other services to identify areas of ‘need’; address regional priorities in their submissions; and contribute to service mapping.
• The Government will need to carefully map existing services (and make this publically available); identify regional priorities; and target funding for services appropriately; to ensure a range of universal and targeted services exist in each region and fund services appropriately to ‘fill the gap’.

4. Services in the FSP will need staff that are highly skilled, knowledgeable, well-supported and lead by skilled leaders.

Family service work is often intense and challenging. If services are to work in more holistic, innovative and flexible ways, they require staff with a diverse range of knowledge, skills and capacities. Moreover, staff attrition in family service work is also quite high resulting in a loss of knowledge and skill in the field. The FSP model therefore has to support both professional development and staff well-being. Therefore, to be part of the FSP services should be required to:

• employ staff who are adequately qualified for their position and/or have equivalence of experience.
• have adequate mechanisms in place for providing both professional and well-being support for staff.
• have strong capable leadership.

Such requirements place great demands on services, and have national training and workforce implications. In particular, Government will need to:

• provide adequate funding to services for employment costs – including professional development and support;
• provide higher education training opportunities to develop the workforce.
• support transdisciplinary professional development including a set of ‘core competencies’ for those working in child and family services.
• provide structures for the identification, support and development of multi-disciplinary leadership in the child and family services’ field.
• improve pay and conditions for family service workers.

The FSP will be a major way that the Australian Government supports our children, families and communities. It is essential, therefore, that services in the FSP are held accountable. One of the challenges services face, however, when delivering flexible programs, is how to provide evidence of the value of their service within reporting documents that are often inflexible. We respectfully recommend, therefore, that to enable programs to provide evidence of their value there be greater flexibility in the ways that services report and provide evidence of their work and the changes that they are making in the lives of children, families and communities. Such an approach will require great trust by funding bodies of service providers. One way of developing this trust is to require programs to provide a clear program logic that links operational activities (what programs do – clearly based on best-practice evidence), with program goals (what the program is aiming to achieve) that are clearly linked to the larger FSP program logic and goals, objectives and vision for children, families and communities.

Can we improve service delivery so that clients requiring services in any of the core FSP streams can enter through any FSP service (ie a ‘no wrong door’ approach)?

• In our experience of providing child and family services we have found that referrals and waiting lists need to be carefully managed. To illustrate, we have found in our work with disability services that once families enter ‘the system’ they are frequently referred to multiple agencies: and, since they want to do the best for their child, they attempt to access every one of these services. Often, however, it is inappropriate for families to access all services. For example, the service may have eligibility criteria that families do not meet – such as the age of the child. Further, two services may provide similar or identical services and, to avoid duplication, make it a requirement that families accessing one service cannot attend the other. Conversely, where families are not referred to multiple services, families can be placed on a waiting list for one service whilst vacancies exist on a similar alternative service. In our work we have found it useful for a key worker in each of our services to have a sound understanding of the eligibility criteria of all services in the local area. We would recommend as part of the FSP technology be developed that could (i) filter families requirements so that families are only referred to services for which they are eligible (ii) centrally manage vacancies.
• Cross referral between services is facilitated where there are clear compacts and agreements, such as Memorandums of Understanding, about how services are communicated to parents, and strong agreement about privacy, confidentiality and consent to share and exchange information across services.
• Referral could be further improved if there was standardisation of documents across all FSP services.

How can we link with other community services (eg FaHCSIA and other Commonwealth programs, state /territory services such as child protection services and mental health)?

Strong linkages between community services and Government, with clear communication pathways, are essential for the success of the FSP. The NSW Department of Community Services has made improvements in such communication through the networks funded under Families NSW. Further, the NSW Department of Aging, Disability and Home Care (DADHC) has developed the Early Childhood Intervention Coordination Program (ECICP) which aims to coordinate services for children with disabilities. These, already established, structures could be developed further to include other FSP services. There is, however, little funding to support these structures. We believe that to further support the development of strong links, participation in such networks should be mandated, supported and adequately funded.

Should we have a set of standards for staff delivering any FSP service?

We agree in principle with the idea of a set of standards and/or code of ethics for FSP services. We have some comments, however, about how these standards should be set and monitored.

• Standards will need to be developed in close consultation with the field. They might include, for instance, the level of qualification and skill that workers within the service must acquire as well as the requirement of a certain level of up-skilling on a regular basis.
• Monitoring: on reflection of our experience of being monitored, both through the Quality Improvement and Accreditation System and through DADHC Disabilities Service Standards, we have found the process challenging but important. In regard to the FSP, we recommend that any FSP monitoring:
  • Be assessed 3 yearly.
  • Be not pass or fail – but rather be about working towards improvement and better practice.
  • Have a self assessment process that requires services to develop an improvement action plan.
  • Be evidence based - monitoring performance over time.
  • Include wide consultation and input from families, staff and organistion board members – using interviews and other appropriate methods for gathering their stories.
  • Have validators who understand the work, such as peers. This will need to be carefully managed because of competitive funding.
  • Should include monitoring of the funded organisation’s adherence to legislation, including anti-discrimination legislation.
  • Commitment to monitoring should be linked to funding.

What quality service standards do you think the FSP should have and are there existing standards that might apply?

• We have found the DADHC Service Standards to be useful, for service improvement, in particular because it includes organisational policies and procedures as well as on-the-ground practices. As such, the monitoring works towards systemic change.

In what circumstances would providers benefit from sharing information/data/resources (including offices, administrative processes, workers, products) and how could this be facilitated?

SDN Children’s Services would welcome the opportunity to work collaboratively with others. Some of the ways sharing could occur include:

• Sharing of client notes and data would be beneficial. It would, however, need to be done sensitively. In particular, client confidentiality would need to be assured. Protocols and procedures would need to be developed to ensure that client details would only be transferred with their consent. If this is not clearly identified and guaranteed, families may refuse to access programs out of fear of their information being passed around.
• In addition, whilst our aim may be to require families only to tell their story once – we need to be mindful that families’ stories change over time. If we only share families’ original stories then we could be reducing the effectiveness of the service as well as removing some of the autonomy from the family. Therefore, a review process would need to be built into any information exchange system, whereby families can update and review their own story.
• A great deal of knowledge will be generated within services. Professional opportunities for sharing these ideas and learnings could lead to more responsive and effective service delivery and better outcomes for children, families and communities. An example of a professional sharing opportunity that SDN Children’s Services has found particularly useful, is the Inclusion Support Agency Statewide training, where Inclusion Support Agencies from across the state come together to share ideas and ways of working. Whilst there was some initial distrust between ISAs at these fora – over time, once trust developed, they have provided to be important venues for professional exchange.
• Personnel exchanges across services and/or agencies can also lead to joint understanding and greater cooperation across agencies. One area that SDN Children’s Services has found particularly useful is the personal exchange between professionals working in our DoCS funded Brighter Futures Program, and DoCS staff. Staff from both agencies have commented positively on this type of exchange and it has increased cooperation between SDN and DoCS.
• Similarly, the establishment of cross disciplinary training is another area that could lead to greater collaboration across and between disciplines.
• Both services and families could potentially benefit if services were able to share resources, particularly in tight fiscal conditions. Some examples of resources that could be shared include, professional supervision, reflection sessions, and physical resources. Such sharing could be facilitated through MOU. Government contracts, therefore, need to recognise the value and facilitate the development of MOU that establish clear guidelines about ways of working and joint responsibilities.

What factors should be taken into account in determining the range of FSP services required for a region or community?

Clearly there is a need to improve the equity of service delivery by better targeting services. There is, however, a great deal of ‘good work’ already being done by services and agencies.

• It is crucial to have a clear understanding about what services already exist in an area and, if necessary, target resources to help them to work better together. Service mapping is therefore essential.
• It is crucial that service mapping include universal services, especially childcare, because it is these services which provide a ‘soft entry point’ into more targeted services. The Commonwealth funded Inclusion Support Program could provide valuable support for working effectively with childcare services. The goal then, would be to have all services – whether funded as FSP services or not - connected to FSP goals. Hence the need for a consistent approach across State, Federal and Local levels of Government.
• When determining which geographic areas should receive FSP services, information from a range of sources should influence decision making including, but not limited to:
  • Information from the housing department.
  • Poverty index
  • Local area health data e.g. methodone clinics / post natal depression / teenage pregnancy etc.
  • Rural / remote
  • Perhaps there is the potential to develop a universal strengths and needs assessment on communities that aggregates data from a range of sources?

What is the best way to specify service catchments/service delivery areas? For example: In delivering services should your delivery area be defined by statistical sub-divisions, local government regions, postcodes or by other means?

At present, inconsistency in catchment areas is a major problem for organisations that provide a range of services funded by different Government Departments. For example, SDN Children’s Services currently provides services funded by DEEWR and DADHC. These services operate in similar geographical areas, out of the same building with the same staff, but each project has a different catchment area – in this instance, Metro North and Sydney Central West. The inconsistency between catchment areas makes it very complicated for staff who work ‘across’ projects, especially when they want to refer across projects – as sometimes families eligible for one service are ‘out of area’ for another. We would recommend, therefore, that there be a review of Government catchment areas, perhaps through COAG, with a view to developing a uniform system for determining catchment areas.

Whilst any way of defining catchment will ultimately lead to some families being excluded, the allocation of funds by postcode can be particularly problematic. A postcode area can be quite small geographically – especially in the metropolitan region. Many families, particularly the most marginalised, with insecure tenure, are highly transient. Whilst they may stay in a general local area, such as a defined town / city they often move out of one postcode into another. This can mean that a move of a very short distance can place families out of catchment areas. As such, Local Government Areas may be a more appropriate way of defining service delivery areas than postcode.

School catchment areas may be another way of defining service delivery areas. Often cohorts of children move from the same early childhood education services through to primary and later secondary schools. This approach would keep the focus on education and potentially support greater collaboration, cohesion and consistency between the early years and later education. It would support the Commonwealth Government’s goal of supporting families through transitions. It would also possibly lead to greater collaboration between States (as the main funders of schools) and the Commonwealth.

How should a balance be achieved between giving providers funding security, managing performance and ensuring services are located in areas of need?

The tenure of funding needs to be commensurate with the type of project being funded. A balance between short and long term funded projects may be appropriate for the FSP. Short-term funding can work well for small time-limited minor projects, such as the development of a local resource. Sometimes, however, because competition for funds can be fierce, organisations which require sustained funding for services, apply for, and inappropriately receive, short-term funding for what are essentially long-term projects. When funds are then not renewed (as is to be expected in short-term funding), this can leave both organisations and communities feeling ‘let down’ and distrustful of services and Government.

In addition, the number of short-term funded projects in the child and family services sector means that many staff in this area are employed on short-term contracts. This has implications both for staff and for the services within which they work. Staff on short term contracts have little job security and may have to frequently move between services. For the services this often means a high turnover of staff making it difficult for services to develop an understanding of the local area, and establish lasting and collaborative relationships as well as the costs associated with recruitment. Short-term funding also increases the burden on organisations as they have to constantly write funding applications. For smaller organisations this often means removing people from actual service delivery.

For larger long-term projects, where services need to be established and develop trust within a community, a short-term funding cycle can be highly problematic and may undermine outcomes. Our long term experiences of working with seriously disadvantaged families and communities is that social disadvantage and community problems are often entrenched and require long term, albeit changing, support services.

We have found that in large projects with a three year funding cycle:

• The initial year is usually spent setting up the project, establishing local contacts and so on. The costs of this initial set-up can be high.
• The second year is spent ‘bedding’ down the project and finding out what works best in the local area.
• By the third year, the service usually has a good understanding of what works, but not only has to continue to deliver a high quality service, also has to make preparations for winding down the service, or re-applying for refunding.

To ensure the success of the FSP therefore:

• The FSP will need adequate funding for both short and long-term projects.
• Short-term funding needs to be explicitly stated as such and short-term funds only allocated to projects that are clearly short-term in nature.
• Services for the most needy families and areas should be provided for at least four years and be renewable where needed.

Security for funders would be secured through services adhering to standards and participating in performance monitoring.

How should good performance in the FSP be identified?

• Good performance in the FSP should be measured holistically. That is, it should include assessment of good financial management, adequate outputs, sound service delivery processes which are based on best practice, and the outcomes achieved.

How should outcomes in the FSP be measured?

• A number of FSP program wide outcomes should be established. These should include individual child, family and community well-being outcomes.
• The FSP should have an overall evaluation strategy built in.
• All FSP services should have a clearly articulated theory of change and be able to indicate how their service contributes to the larger FSP outcomes.
• To ensure diversity and flexibility of service delivery, services funded under the FSP should be able to negotiate ways of reporting that ‘fit’ with the overall FSP evaluation (see theme 2). Data gathered should both reflect the internal logic of the project (see Theme 2) and contribute to larger FSP goals.
• ‘Numbers’ and ‘stories’ are of equal importance. Therefore, both qualitative and quantitative data should be collected.

What systems and processes could we use to support this?

Currently, one of the challenges for organisations that operate a number of services funded by different Government departments is the inconsistency between reporting requirements. Not only do different Government departments have different requirements for the types of data collected, there are also differences in the ways they are collected, what ‘counts’ as data and how they are reported. Consequently, for staff ‘on the ground’ a great deal of their time is spent differentiating between (essentially similar) data for different reporting requirements – reducing their time in actual service delivery. It would be extremely beneficial if reporting was streamlined with universal definitions and systems in place.

Specifically with regard to the FSP:

• FSP program wide outcomes should be established – in negotiation with stakeholders – to which all FSP funded services must commit.
• All services should have funding allocated and quarantined for evaluation – including access to the support of a local evaluator.
• Effective and useable tools for collecting relevant data need to be developed – that reflect the diversity of the services.
• Report templates and tools need to be universally useable across a range of ICT interfaces.

SDN Children’s strongly believes that FSP funding should only be allocated to not-for-profit organisations.

Ensuring smaller organisations are able to compete in a fair and equitable way in the tender process

The past few decades have seen the extended funding of larger voluntary agencies, or sometimes businesses, that offer specialised professional services. Consequently, with the reallocation of funding some smaller agencies, offering services to particular communities, have lost funding under these models. Yet our experiences with supporting a range of quite small agencies through programs with children’s services, family support and a range of state based services, has shown us that these smaller agencies, usually with less formal structures, are often the most effective at engaging the most marginalised groups. Therefore, we would like to be reassured that there will be awareness of the needs of smaller agencies.

The tender process is particularly important for ensuring a rational and transparent system for distributing resources.

The type of tender should depend on the type of service being funded. For instance:

• Innovative projects should be put out for competitive tendering.
• Projects that replicate an existing project should be competitive and/or selective.
• Funding for continuing successful projects should be through selective tendering.

From our experience of completing tenders we would recommend the following:

• Opportunities for funding need to be clearly and widely communicated.
• Support for smaller organisations to develop tenders.
  • Perhaps grants to contribute to the costs associated with tender writing.
  • Providing mentoring in ‘how to write successful tenders’
• The tender process must be clear, streamlined with rational criteria.
• We have found that tendering processes that are well supported with a free-flow of information between the funding body and the tender writers are the most helpful when developing tenders. In particular, DADHC have a ‘Frequently Asked Question’ section on their website where responses to FAQ are placed for all to see.
• Good feedback from the funding body on unsuccessful tenders is also extremely helpful for improving tender writing.
• Probity: the DADHC tendering processes also undergoes probity for ensuring no one organisation received favoured treatment. This adds to the transparency of the funding process.

Contract re-negotiation.

The end of contract period is a particularly difficult for time for services. Insecurity about on-going funding leads to a lack of job security amongst staff and can mean that services loose good staff, with local knowledge and program expertise. For instance, SDN Children’s Services operates a number of services in the Redfern area that are coming to the end of their funding. SDN will potentially loose several highly skilled workers with many years experience and knowledge of the local area, including one staff member who recently received an OAM for her volunteer work with vulnerable families. This is a huge loss, not just to the organisation but particularly to the local families and community, with whom she has developed close and supportive relationships. From our experience of re-negotiating contacts we would recommend the following:

• Re-negotiations for contracts need to be done in a timely manner.