Griffith University response to FSP consultation 

The Family Support Program sets out a vision for 'Government and the community sector to change the way they work together to deliver high quality, coordinated services' (p2). The vision will not be achieved without first setting in place a clear and deliberate process for managing change in the way services are delivered (which involves moving to an integrated holistic approach based around the needs of children and their families) because genuine collaboration across sectors, services and disciplines is difficult and unlikely to occur in a systematic way without a coherent plan for getting there.

To realise its goals, the FSP will need to develop capacity within the various levels of the service industry to work effectively within the FSP operational framework. While probably universally desired, many of the key requirements of the FSP won't be achieved without clear direction, guidance, support, training and system reform. A top level or front-end step is needed to create system-level structures and processes that will help service providers develop the necessary skills, confidence and commitment to move away from established (sometimes ineffective) practices and operate within a coordinated framework. This will support the service sector's capacity to achieve the FSP's three governing principles and six key program requirements.

To help the service sector meet these challenges an overarching national-level training and development model could be used. Within this model a central independent unit could operate on a number of levels to provide guidelines, training, information and advice (e.g., on how to build coalitions and establish collaborative practices, choose evidence-based programs, find resources, select evaluation tools and data-collection methods and identify emerging trends within communities in order to plan local service delivery trajectories for ongoing and future needs etc). This central unit could work with local-level intermediaries (e.g., Communities for Children facilitating partner coordinators) who would then work at a more operational level with local service providers within their community. It could operate as a central filter to set benchmarks for the quality and range of services on offer and to achieve greater consistency across diverse sites while still allowing for innovation, cultural specificity and flexibility at the local level. It would also provide a process for sharing successful practice and innovation across communities and thus for overseeing expansion of the repository of evidence-based and practice-informed program options.

A combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches is required to facilitate the development of flexible service models at the local level. Locked system-level structures and bureaucratically demarcated responsibilities, KPIs , resources and funding streams foster a narrow outcomes focus that inhibits system-wide policy and planning for practice based on a holistic ecological approach and, in turn, limits the capacity of down-stream service providers to engage in coordinated work (even when they have the desire to do so).
To support families and children in a coherent and holistic way, the FSP needs to establish mechanisms that will enable the wide focus that merges effort across community, education and health portfolios as well as coordination across federal, state and local levels and between government and non-government service sectors to be realised. The top-down process creates the structure that helps prepare everyone for collaboration, identifies critical issues in relation to the needs of children and families and builds capacity within systems to address them in a coherent way, while bottom-up processes allow local solutions to be woven into the mix.

Services will need to find new and innovative ways to integrate their work with others and make themselves part of a coherent network that is facilitated by the top-level process.

Managing integrated service delivery through some sort of universal service (e.g., schools) would help promote universal access, early identification of issues and swift responsive intervention. Making core service elements of the FSP widely available within the population in this way would help reduce stigma and open doors to more tailored services that help ensure additional support is available to overcome disadvantage and address targeted need.

As mentioned in the previous section, managing integrated service delivery through universally accessed services like schools that are present in virtually every community could help promote comprehensive family and child support. Using such organisations as hosts that attract families and initiate contact in this way raises community awareness about service availability and how to get help if needed.
However, schools and other community agencies and services will need support and guidance in order to achieve genuine and effective collaboration and adopt a coordinated approach to supporting development in a cohesive and holistic way. (Although sometimes it is assumed to be so, co-location and cross-service referral is not the same as collaboration.) All services need help to prepare for such reform, and training in how to put structures and practices in place to enact FSP requirements.

The set up and use of a dedicated national-level training and development unit could help with this process. By serving as a mechanism for producing educational materials and disseminating high quality, up-to-the-minute information, training packages and program resources, it would promote the fidelity with which quality services are provided across diverse sites. It would also facilitate the establishment of effective local level collaboration through structured processes for joint planning and resource sharing that would ultimately result in more seamless service linking that streamlines client pathways through the service maze and tailors response more closely to need. It would also facilitate empowerment of clients to become more self-directed and self-sufficient in negotiating access to services of their choosing.

If the FSP decided to sponsor a national-level training, development and quality-assurance unit, this could act as a repository for information about a range of evidence-based programs (and an even wider menu of practice-informed refinements of such programs).Through this process, it is possible that a recommendation might be made about whether there is some core set of service elements that any community would need to provide in order to deliver a base-level of the FSP.

Communities could then build on the core offer in a way that reflects local diversity and need. To assist this process of local flexibility, the central training, development and quality-assurance unit could also help service delivery areas (however they are defined) use an accepted set of indicators of children's and family wellbeing to identify locally-relevant issues in order to rally community action focused around the needs of children.

The process of developing an overarching outcomes framework within the FSP should incorporate identification of a limited set of key indicators of relevant outcomes and specify or develop standard tools and processes for measuring them in a consistent way across service delivery regions. The use of indicators that are based on the ecological approach helps to assess the effectiveness of integrated community-level action as well as the effectiveness of individual services that have come together as part of the mix. In a sense, therefore, evaluation can itself be used to promote or act as a built-in impetus for partnership and coordinated service delivery systems.

Systematic measurement of outcome indicators helps communities monitor and respond to change over time in the healthy development and wellbeing of children and families in the service catchment area. It also helps guide decisions regarding whether or not the services involved are working in an effective way as part of the integrated support network to make a significant contribution to community level outcomes. Individual services that are found to contribute little to the broad outcomes sought by the service-delivery area may be deemed less necessary - but this would be a local-intermediary level decision that may guide ongoing funding of service elements within the area.

In addition, other indicators may be developed that could help identify any environmental factors that may be inhibiting the success of service elements (this would be a sign that the collaboration is not working at the community level). This type of information may help coalition partners make necessary adjustments to move towards more effective service coordination. These indicators could also contribute to measurement of how effectively local services engage in coordinated practice and site themselves as a linchpin within the broad multi-system holistic approach.

Subsequent measurement of oucome indicators (in the short and longer term) would help the service providers see and understand the change they are making for clients and within the community. However, it is important to temper expectations regarding measurement of outcomes with a realistic understanding that complex behaviour change may not occur quickly, so some care needs to be taken to ensure there is a balance of short, medium and long term indicators available.

Measurement of outcomes helps services become more accountable for the services they provide. Systematic evidence of program success and degree of impact is an important tool in the ongoing cycle of program improvement, but it can also contribute to cost effective practice (e.g., where two activities are found to work as well as each other but one costs more to implement).

The quality control and performance-monitoring process would need to incorporate some sort of training for service providers about evaluating their own practice and how to act on evidence of program impact. In this way, participating in evaluation becomes directly useful at the local level to both service providers and regional coordinators. It is also useful at a much higher level in the sense that, when evidence is synthesised across multiple service areas, it informs the continuing the cycle of national planning and policy development.

Prior to the assessment of program performance, the measurement of key indicators can help mobilise service providers within the catchment area around significant issues and provide the kind of information they need to develop a strategic plan for local action.

It makes sense to gauge success and monitor accountability in terms of core outcomes achieved (as opposed to outputs such as counting contacts or services provided). However, the collection of data about client participation goes hand-in-hand with outcomes measurement (i.e., outcomes have to measured in relation to the type and intensity of service received by a participant). To measure the success of the FSP, therefore, it will be necessary to develop a system for collecting data on client participation in a systematic way (e.g., through a central on-line database). This would form part of a national database for monitoring outcomes.

If a national level unit for training, development, and quality assurance was set up as part of the FSP's broad capacity-building strategy, this central unit could serve as a data linkage hub and provide training to local level service coordinators in how to use an on-line portal for data entry. This unit could incorporate a research section to assist in the development of the overarching outcomes framework and outcome indicators noted above. It could oversee ongoing development of data collection procedures and program monitoring. Where initially it may act as a clearing house for current information about evidence-based services, through it's involvement in monitoring the impact of local service implementation it could also contribute to the ongoing practice-informed adaptation of such programs for diverse groups and hence to innovation spawned at the local level which should be encouraged by service providers participating in outcomes measurement and rewarded by the provision of ongoing funding at the local level for effective practice.

Need to make sure the system for distributing resources does not inadvertently create competition between services as this would undermine the fundamental goal to work collaboratively.