Policy and Research
Bringing Evidence to Practice
CareSouth is committed to building a culture of Research and Evaluation, and this has been clearly captured in our Key Success Factor 1: Research, Education and Evidence, in our new 2016 Strategic Plan.
This commitment will assist us to dovetail decision-making about program planning and everyday practice with the evidence base, which rests on a sound knowledge of relevant research, and our own understanding of the outcomes and impacts of our services for children, young people and adults living with disability. To this end, we have commenced building a Knowledge Bank of resources and practice evidence, and have developed CareSouth’s first Research Agenda.
We also want to be able to clearly understand and describe how our activities improve the lives of people we work with, by strengthening our understanding and competency in assessing outcomes and impact. This area of work is a growing field for not-for-profits working in human services, allowing greater accountability and continuous improvement. During 2015-2016, our Policy & Research team worked with the Aunties and Uncles, Our Place and Homework Hub programs to develop Theories of Change and program logics, so that outcomes for these programs might be better understood, and indicators developed. This has paved the way for evaluation planning for these programs. To this end, at the beginning of 2016, we embarked on undertaking a Social Return on Investment (SROI) for the Homework Hub. This will be completed and published in the coming year.
The continuing development of the CareSouth Practice Framework has helped to align our practice across all services with the principles, values and purpose of the organisation. Just as importantly, our Practice Framework enables us to capture the evidence-based practices which underpin our work, so that it is strengths-based, person-centred and trauma-informed. Our Practice Framework Principles provide the 6 core principles of service delivery at CareSouth. Development of Practice Manuals to support the implementation of the Practice Framework commenced in early 2016, with the collation of CareSouth work practices promoting best practice in Out-of-Home Care (OOHC).
Engaging with the Social Policy agenda
CareSouth believes that our work with children, young people, families, and adults living with disability provides us with invaluable experience. We can offer this experience towards the continuous improvement of the social policy and legislative environment within which we work, and to this end, we engage in consultations and respond to inquiries relevant to our sectors. The Policy & Research team have supported this work by providing written responses to consultations for Targeted Early Intervention, the FACS OOHC Quality Assurance Framework and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. We also participated in the cross agency co-design workshops to improve policy and programming with the East Nowra community. These activities assist us to deliver on our Key Success Factor 5: Social Change.
Organisational Policies
During 2015-2016 CareSouth’s Policy & Research team undertook a massive overhaul of our organisational policies and procedures. A review of policies across the organisation was undertaken which in turn inspired the development of a new suite of policy and procedure projects. These projects will lead to the drafting of over 300 new or significantly revised documents, which will provide a robust framework through which we can support good governance, promote best practice and manage risks. Underpinning these policy development projects is a substantive new Policy Management System, embedding advanced consultation, document control, records management, accessibility and governance features. A project to transfer all controlled documents to an indexed database, accessible through the CareSouth Intranet, commenced in 2016.
Safeguarding Children
CareSouth has commenced the Safeguarding Children Accreditation program with the Australian Childhood Foundation (ACF). This program will support us to develop and implement best practice in institutional child protection. We are one of only two NSW based Out-of-Home Care providers to have undertaken this voluntary program, and the only provider working in our geographical footprint.
The Safeguarding Children program is prevention-focused, assisting organisations to create systems that promote safety, and reduce the opportunity for harms, including crimes, to occur. Responsibility for taking action is understood and accepted across all levels of the organisation.
By undertaking accreditation against the ACF’s ‘7 Strategies’, CareSouth will lead the way within the child welfare sector in providing the safest possible policies, practices and culture for our work with children and young people. For more information about the program, see the Safeguarding Children website.
