Fewer children are entering out-of-home care in the Australian state of Victoria thanks to a suite of evidence-informed family strengthening practices developed and implemented by CEI and our partners, the Victorian Aboriginal Child and Community Agency (VACCA), the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare (CfECFW), and the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH).
Evaluation of the Family Preservation and Reunification Response ('the Response'), a statewide family services reform led by DFFH, has found the program resulted in an 18% reduction in children entering care.
“We are incredibly heartened by these results, which directly link the diversion of 229 children from care to the efforts of the Response,” says Dr Melinda Polimeni, CEI Director.
More than half of Response families (53%) showed improvements in family functioning, and 46% improved in parenting efficacy.
“Better family functioning results in children staying with their families and not entering the out-of-home care system,” says Melinda. “We are especially encouraged by the results for Aboriginal families, with 52 children diverted from care – representing a 14% reduction.”
“The evaluation noted that Response practitioners’ participation in training and coaching is directly related to improvements for the families they work with. This tells us that the evidence-informed practices we’ve developed with our partners and the implementation strategies we’ve together applied are having a positive effect.”
CEI has partnered with the Response since its inception in 2020. Core to this work has been development and implementation of eight modules containing 37 practice elements, providing a toolbox to guide practitioners in their work with children and families.
Practice elements like ‘Deep listening’, Co-regulation’, ‘Family routines’ and ‘Trauma psychoeducation’ have been created by integrating the best research with Aboriginal knowledge and practice and on-the-ground practitioner expertise.
“It is very important for the Response to have cultural practice elements as foundational, and they are built into the design of the approach. The collaboration with VACCA on development of these cultural practice elements is key to success,” says Melinda.
Following initial implementation of the Response in 11 agencies in 2020, a statewide scale-up to 34 agencies, including 12 Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs), commenced in 2022 – underpinned by a comprehensive implementation framework.
“Implementation matters just as much as the practice elements for improving outcomes for children and families,” Melinda explains. “The very strong focus on high-quality implementation in the Response is quite deliberate: it is vital that this initiative is scaled across the sector in a sustainable way. A staged and planned set of implementation strategies have been used to ensure continual improvement of the Response over the past four years.”
“We are now starting to see the real benefit for families of a focus on intensive, evidence-informed early intervention with strong implementation. These early results are immensely encouraging that we are fulfilling the Response’s goals of promoting strong families where children can be healthy, resilient and thriving, and parents and caregivers can be supported to create safe and nurturing home environments.”
Read more on the Family Preservation and Reunification Response ('the Response') HERE
