Exploring the role of Communities for Children (CfC) Facilitating Partners and their impact on service delivery and collaborative community service delivery 2019

This report presents the key findings of an evaluation following the introduction of the FP process engagement changes in 2014. Dr Yvonne Parry and her team were engaged by five FPs to review a number of reforms that they believed had changed their interactions with their CfC service providers. Dr Parry’s team engaged directly with 109 stakeholders including FPs, CPs, local CfC FP committee members and other local service providers through face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews, focus groups and site visits. Additionally, over 223 survey responses have informed the report findings.
The CfC FPs’ relationship with the CfC CPs on the whole reflected a functional, collegial and respectful process, acutely focused on improving the lives of some of Australia’s most underserved, disadvantaged and at-risk children.
The main findings include:
•the recognition that the FP-CP relationship had: increased the provision of the delivery of evidence-based programs; improved access to more high quality programs for the CP community; supported the engagement of marginalised and disadvantaged clients; increased knowledge of the delivery of evidence-based programs; provided an appropriate selection of programs for communities; provided better programs for the target population in the CfC region; and increased the skills of CPs in the delivery of evidence-based programs
•that conversely, the reduction of support from the FP reduced the presence of the CfC CP in local collaborations. This result indicates that when the FP reduces its support for collaborative initiatives then the involvement of the CfC service delivery CPs in local collaboration is also significantly reduced
•a significant major finding identifying the appropriateness of programs to the target population and region; the more appropriate the programs were to the region significantly and positively improved the quality of the activities in the region
•that additionally, the FP and CfC CP relationship was imperative to the engagement with marginalised and disadvantaged clients and the strength and positivity of the relationship directly impacted on the improvement in providing quality activities in the regions studied. This exemplary result meets the key performance indicators for the FP and CfC community partnership and service delivery Operational Guidelines
•that the significance of the quantitative findings regarding the relationships between the FP, CfC CP and the community was robustly confirmed by the qualitative responses from the focus groups and individual interviews
•that the quantitative survey statements provided to the participants overwhelmingly illustrated that when the FP and CfC CP agreed on how they would work together, the services provided and the procedures for identifying children at risk, then the outcomes for the FP-CfC-CP relationship benefited all, including the children, families and communities that are most at risk. Additionally, this research found overwhelmingly that the FPs and CfC CPs had a shared commitment to the communities and the population they all served.
Overall, the changes that had occurred throughout the CfC initiative had been positive, especially since the FPs had provided the lead on program delivery and aspects of community capacity building. The caveat on this is that the program delivery met the needs of the community and were provided in a manner that specifically met community needs rather than dose related programs which were often poorly attended and failed to provide the longer-term support required
by underserviced and disadvantaged children and their families.