The Family Centre (TFC) is committed to involving relevant stakeholders in decision making about child safe organisations and communities, including parents, young people and people from a range of service delivery sectors. This approach is emended in our Values and Practice Principle that highlight collaboration, participation and stakeholder contribution.

TFC has adopted co-design principles to “…shift the locus of responsibility and control so that ʻclientsʼ or users of services become active partners in designing, shaping and resourcing services, rather than being passive recipients of pre-determined services.” (Burkett).

However, government funding is usually prescriptive about the perceived problem and the program delivery solution to that problem. Working within rigidly prescribed program models presents challenges to establishing a credible co-design process.

This presentation will discuss how TFC has embedded co-design principles and practice within its organisational culture and across a range of government funded programs. The presentation will outline specific examples of projects focused on the safety and wellbeing of children, young people and families TFC have undertaken to operate according to co-design principles within prescriptive funded program limitations.

The Western Integrated Intensive Family Support System is a disciplined approach to integrated service provision across a region that covers three council areas with a population up to 280,000.What separates this collaboration from others is its deliberative strategy to embed a ‘Systems-thinking’ approach to improving the integration and coordination of services from across a number of sectors. The initiative grew having identified that an increasing number of children and families were presenting with low to medium risk factors were not able to receive services due to increasing demand. By enhancing cross/level sector connections and meeting regularly we have begun to see a shift including case coordination, and improved sharing of information since its start in September 2016.

The primary audience is individual staff who work with or manage services for children and families. A shared measurement system helps staff to identify appropriate referral pathways to ensure children and families receive timely support- this system looks at the capacity of the various services. Tracking waiting lists, number of active clients, capacity of services and number of services across the system. Individuals from government and non-government organisations representing multiple sectors including Homelessness, Low Income Support, and Ante/post-natal support (among others) meet regularly to address ongoing system challenges.


P. G. Foster-Fishman, et al. ‘Putting the system back into systems change: a framework for understanding and changing organizational and community systems’, Community Psychol, 2007.

J. Neal, Z. Neal, ‘Nested or networked? Future directions for ecological systems theory’, Social Development, Vol 22 No. 4.

Wanslea has developed its practice with families experiencing vulnerability by the linking of research evidence to established promising practice, with the help of the Parenting Research Centre in Victoria. The motivation was to ensure that families had access to the best possible outcomes to improve their wellbeing and that of their children and communities, particularly in the first 1000 days.

Wanslea co-produced a Practice Framework for use in each of its parenting programs with the assistance of the Parenting Research Centre. It uses practices and skills that have been shown to work with families experiencing vulnerability. We are in the final stages of the implementation of the framework into daily practice and have followed an approach developed by the National Implementation Research Network in the United States that provides a structure for managing organisational change. A number of evidence based tools and systems have been introduced and different ways of working established. An implementation team has guided the process with the assistance of our research partner.

Wanslea has introduced a model of coaching that complements clinical supervision and practitioners are supported to enable families to receive a service in the way it was intended. This has included introducing and reinforcing conceptual and behavioural skills that are known to be effective. Data collection has also been introduced to guide and inform decision making at the clinical and organizational level. An outcome evaluation is in progress and early results will be shared along with feedback from practitioners.