TACSI - What's happening

Balancing change

Leanne Evans — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:01:42 +1000

Think of yourself as adaptable and spontaneous? Then change happens and takes your breath away.

To me, change feels like you’re standing on a tight rope trying to get your balance. The adrenaline has kicked in and there’s always the threat you may fall, it’s a challenge to keep steady, stay on your feet, think on your feet. At the same time, it feels exciting: the knowledge that if you give it your best shot, try new things to reach your goals - well it could be a most exciting and life changing event!

That’s how I’m feeling about Family by Family. We’re bracing for change on every level - new staff, new sites, new states and new experiences.

One change I’m in the middle of at the moment is seeing what we can learn from swapping coaching sites - I've been the family coach in Marion, and for the next two months I've swapped with Dani to become the family coach in Playford. There have been times it's felt uncomfortable and challenging. And the little things can hurt the most: moving from a comfortable and familiar space with the relationships I’ve built, to something new and unknown feels daunting.

So how to face the fear of change?

My strategy is to move straight toward it and face it head on, but perhaps by taking little steps. It’s the first step onto the tight rope and it’s a risk. I’m hopeful that the achievement of giving it a go, and trying to making it work, could take me to new heights and learnings, maybe open new doors? It’s a good feeling to have confidence that we have the skills within our team to take on the challenges of change.

And it’s about remembering that once, even the things we now take for granted - tying our shoe laces, first day of school, having children - were all new the first time around.

So I’ll be reminding myself to focus on the joy of discovery, and that I can work together with my team to overcome any obstacles - and feel less anxious, to more exhilarated! Time to take and learn from the next step!

A new partnership and approach to seed innovation

Christian Stenta — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:00:00 +1000

16/4/13 Update: 100K on offer to improve fruit & vegetable supply and access, and to promote a culture of healthy eating in Victoria!

Click here for more info!

In the 1980's, an unprecedented move in Melbourne lay the groundwork for the emergence of a series of worldwide innovations. The Parliament of Victoria passed laws which set the standard for international best practice by banning outdoor tobacco advertising and using cigarette taxes to fund anti-smoking campaigns and buy out the tobacco sponsorship of sport and the arts.

The centrepiece of the Tobacco Act of 1987 was the establishment of the world’s first health promotion foundation, VicHealth. Its bold mission: to improve the health of all Victorians.

Innovation has played a key role in the ongoing strategy of VicHealth. From pioneering research into Alzheimer’s disease and the establishment of the first Victorian breast cancer screening program to an ongoing focus on adolescent mental health and food security, VicHealth has made a significant contribution locally, nationally and internationally to the field of health promotion. This contribution was recognised in 1996 when it was award the Medal for Excellence by the World Health Organisation, and spurred the development of foundations across Australia and internationally in Switzerland, Austria and Thailand.

The VicHealth model is characterised by an approach which engages multiple perspectives to advance health promotion, including: policy reform, service delivery, advocacy, community engagement, partnership development and capacity building.

This is why we’re excited to be announcing a new partnership with VicHealth to take this commitment to innovation to a new level by sharing our experience in sourcing promising new ideas and investing in early stage ventures, and blending in our methods of codesign, business model innovation and theory of change.

Our collaboration will explore new ways to seed innovation in health promotion, through fostering new partnership and investment models which build on our experiences from the 2010 Bold Ideas Better Lives Challenge. We're specifically looking to improve the resilience of fruit and vegetable supply within the state, ensuring that all Victorians have access to adequate, affordable and nutritious foods and importantly, foster and promote a culture of healthy eating.

Over the next 12 months, we’ll be creating opportunities to source community-driven innovations, exploring effective models for supporting early stage ventures and considering the influence innovation can play in shaping organisational culture and policy. We’ll also be examining the impact of intrapreneurship, cross sectoral relationships, collaboration, social investment and impact measurement. Our insights will be shared here on the TACSI blog, so be sure to visit regularly.

You can also keep up to date with the latest by signing up to our newsletter, following @ozinnovation and @cstenta on Twitter, and and liking our page on Facebook.

From the City of Salisbury to TACSI and back again

Jenna Romaine — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:08:13 +1100

My time working on the Ageing and Caring project as part of the Radical Redesign team was one of the most amazing, life changing experiences of my life. At this time I also got married, pregnant and then had my beautiful daughter all while being challenged in every facet of my professional life. The support of my wonderful husband and fantastic work mates (I couldn’t have had better ones!) made all the difference. Strong support networks were one of the keys to success for me and really helped me weather the sometimes rough seas.

I’m a born and bred no nonsense South Aussie girl. For the past 10 years I’ve worked in Aged Care and loved it. I started in a Residential facility as a Lifestyle Coordinator and then moved to work for the City of Salisbury at one of the most innovative seniors centres in the state, the Jack Young Centre (JYC).

JYC is vibrant and exciting, there is always something going on. With around 1000 members and 200 volunteers the place just buzzes. I loved working with the people and I was really good at my job. Despite all of this positiveness and the great place JYC was and still is, I always had in the back of my mind that I could do more. It was that something that kept niggling away at me, reminding me that there were lots of other people out in the Salisbury community who were not into the stuff we were doing at JYC (however diverse and interesting we thought it was). These people wanted and needed something else. Our dilemma as staff was two-fold. Initially it was where to meet them – they didn’t use JYC and then how to connect with them. Secondly how were we to design something they were into? What we were trying just wasn’t working.

After another failed attempt to start up a different program to attract the sort of people not currently hanging out at JYC and not into what we were already doing I remember feeling stuck, just not knowing what to do. I wondered ‘why are we so good at recycling current members but find it so hard to bring in new ones?' Why were we so stuck in our old ways of designing programs?’

In August 2011 I was seconded to TACSI from the City of Salisbury. The secondment was about learning new ways of working with people and engaging with the community, looking at the creation of programs and services from a different angle and being exposed to some new skills and ways of approaching work. I was pumped, this was such an exciting opportunity for me. Everything was brand new and I felt like a kid on their first day of school. All awkward and tentative and even a bit scared. It would take a while for my natural confidence and style to really shine through. I felt like this even though this was change I had actively sought. Imagine if this sort of change was being imposed on you, if you were resistant. Now that would be scary! I knew I had a lot to learn in order to do my job back at Salisbury better and to give more to the community.

Like everyone, particularly people who work in Aged Care I did my job in a certain way. I'd done it for so long that most of it was done on autopilot and I rarely (if ever) questioned why I was doing things in a certain way or even why I was doing them at all. Joining the Radical Redesign team opened my eyes to just how rigid my style had become. The team was made up of people from varying backgrounds – community development, design, education, business – I was the only person with an Aged Care background which put my practices under the microscope. Having to explain to others why I did things in a certain way really opened my eyes and help me identify some of those areas where there might be a window of opportunity to change and do things differently.

THREE BIG THINGS ABOUT WORKING AT TACSI:

1. I’m a people person, that’s what I do!

Working closely with lots of different people has always been a key part of my job, my favourite part in fact. This was one thing that I did really well but my time with TACSI has ramped up my style and helped me develop some new techniques to understand people better. We spent extended periods of time with people – sometimes a few hours, sometimes a few days – just doing what they do, where they do it. I sat on couches watching Oprah, went along to hairdressing appointments and sipped coffee in busy food courts. Hanging out with people in this way helped me uncover different stuff about people, the stuff that makes them tick. Initially this approach was quite foreign and uncomfortable. I felt like I was bludging at work and wasn’t even sure if it was worthwhile. After a short period of time I saw results and these feelings disappeared. The best example of this was an 89 year old lady who had been a member at JYC for years. She appeared happy and jovial, often cracking jokes and telling stories. The several afternoons I spent with her at her house completely changed how I knew her. I got to see how she really lived and the daunting family, health and financial problems she faced on a daily basis. Hard stuff like wondering where her next meal was coming from, trying to reconnect with family and being hung up on and being so ill and lonely that she wished not to wake up in the morning. Really tough, in your face stuff that she had kept hidden as I hadn’t ever interacted with her on her turf, where she was who she was.

What people tell you about themselves and what their homes and lives tell you about them are two completely different things.

2. I know because they told me and I saw it with my own eyes

I’ve always looked for evidence to back up decisions I’ve made or give reason for programs I’d designed. Being a people person this evidence was mainly anecdotal. At TACSI I learnt to look for, understand and use academic research to back up and give more meat to what we were designing. Using this sort of evidence gave me the confidence that we weren’t just plucking things out the sky and designing stuff for a mere few. It was helping us to flesh out issues and address some of the complexities. I found trawling the internet for these articles and then learning how to understand and effectively use them a really tough long haul. At times it was also pretty dry – but in the end it was so vital to the whole process. It’s what give great new ideas a loud voice. One that the likes of upper management and funders can hear and if you want to get off the ground, their ears have to be open.

3. It’s okay to stuff up…no really it is!

I’ve always worked in environments where getting it right was the only way to go. Usually there is some support for people to learn and make mistakes and even some language about encouraging i,t but essentially success is measured by getting it right. Coming to TACSI with that mindset caused me quite a few road blocks as this kind of work needs you to get it wrong. It needs you to try things that don’t work, or only half work. You need to get frustrated and wonder what it is your going to do next. You need to get to that point where you think it’s never going to work because that’s when you really start to work out some of those new ideas or bits of ideas. Persistence and getting it wrong. That’s where the success is.

Jenna Romaine is currently on maternity leave after the birth of her first child. She is looking forward to heading back to work at the City of Salisbury in late 2013 where she plans to implement much of the co-design way of work she has learnt to love. Jenna continues to work with TACSI by sharing her experiences and insights about what it was like to learn and work in such a new way. If you would like to contact Jenna please do so by leaving a comment below or via staff at TACSI.

The Caring Economy - Peer to Peer Empathy

Suhit Anantula — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 16:53:35 +1100

The Economist recently ran an article on the sharing economy, what they call peer-to-peer rental. The role that organisations like AirBnB are playing by enabling people to share the ability to use physical spaces like their houses for rent. This creates new opportunities to use inherently underutilised capacity and revenue streams. A whole new business model has been created by AirBnB. This is the sharing economy.

Our programs at TACSI; Family by Family, Weavers or The Opp Store (PDF). They are all based on the same idea. They are peer-to-peer, they are based on enabling the under utilised capacity of human beings to help each other and create a new model of caring that puts people at the centre and in the process creates social capital in the community.

The challenge of-course is that it is not online, the assets are people's time, empathy and volunteering altruism to share and connect to others and help those around them. However, that is the strength of these programs.

On a larger level, these kinds of programs are the starting bedrock of the "caring economy" which creates community social capital and increases opportunities for individuals to express themselves and be part of something bigger.

As we expand into more communities across Australia we have an opportunity to create change collectively. TACSI is always open to partnerships with organisations and individuals to create the "caring economy - peer to peer empathy”.

TACSI is looking for a new Marketing and Fundraising Manager

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:44:28 +1100

TACSI is excited to announce that we are looking for a new Marketing and Fundraising Manager.

We're searching for someone who's full of energy to passionately drive the development and implementation of TACSI's marketing, public relations, media and communications strategies.

Join a team from the worlds of social science, design, business model innovation and community development. Our vision is more Australians thriving, not just surviving. Join our team and help bring that vision to life.

Find more information about the role and how to apply here.

New Report: Creating change for Aboriginal families

Jess De Campo — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 10:56:42 +1100

Read our interim report: Creating change for Aboriginal families.

With the support of Northern Connections, we've spent the last 2 months with 7 Aboriginal families and 15 different services in the norther suburbs of Adelaide with the aim of working out how services, including our very own Family by Family, could play a bigger part in helping creating change for Aboriginal families. Through co-design, we've identified some clear opportunities that we'd love to get your feedback on.

You can download a copy of the report here.

Musings from my year as a Rad

Jenna Romaine — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 10:50:20 +1100

I realise this whole blog post is going to sound gushy and over the top but to be completely honest (trust me, I find it difficult to be anything but!) every scerrick I type is probably not even close to accurately describing the experience I’ve had. When I was first seconded from the City of Salisbury there is no way I couldn’t have predicted the gradient of the learning curve I was set to experience. Pretty much vertical!

Working so closely with such an eclectic and skilled bunch of people from all over has been flat out amazing. By now you would have scoped out the team – their different backgrounds, specialism’s, skills and experience and for a girl from the Adelaide ‘burbs just sitting in the same room and watching how these people work was inspiring, motivating and really exciting. But I got to do way more than that. I got the experience of a lifetime.

(Especially in the early days) I would wonder to myself how I was possibly going to contribute to the learning and growth of these people as much as I knew they were for me. These thoughts made me scared. I doubted myself, my abilities and even got a touch of imposter syndrome from time to time. What didn’t falter was my drive to learn, grow and get better. To make the absolute most of this experience, to glean what I could and just go for it. Every day I decided to jump in feet first, fully clothed and swim for my life. I loved it.

Working with the Radicals has enabled me to develop a different kind of work ethic. I really value this opportunity and think one of the big contributors has been that everyone has such a different version of how they work best and what working best means. It’s not that I didn’t consider myself a hard worker before I became a Rad, it’s just that I’ve tested out some other ways to get the job done. I’ve worked out some different approaches that result in much better quality work – I can inject so much more of my natural passion into what I do. I’m excited to see how this applies to future work.

The Radical experience has tended to be a bit of a roller coaster. It pushed my professional and personal relationships, demanded more than I could have predicted in terms of time and energy and as a result I made some significant sacrifices. Some conscious and some not, some I’ve readily accepted the consequences of and others I am yet to reconcile. Emotionally it’s been pretty full on and I think this is why I feel so connected with the team and the work we have done. We’ve been through a lot. My family and friends have copped it too. They’ve had to deal with and accept a different, often less present me - which hasn’t always been easy.

Our team has been pushed. To be more passionate and inject this into our work, to learn how to look through different lenses and apply this, to smash the boundaries and conventions of our previous experience and to create new ways of enabling change. Our truly inter-disciplinary team made this possible.

Moving into the prototyping phase in around June/July was just like landing in a foreign country. You’ve read the guide book but you don’t speak the language, don’t understand the customs and you’re really not sure what to expect. We did however have our co-leads who had travelled there before and guided us through some of the toughest parts.

Once the prototype really kicked in I started to feel like my specialist area – working with older people and I suppose people in general – was in higher demand. There were times I was feeling a bit more comfortable and I was able to contribute to the learning of my team. To help them learn and develop – this was really satisfying for me.

While prototyping we brought on our team of weavers, built partnerships with our network of promoters and were out and about meeting and connecting with networks. I was in my element and not for the first time in my career found myself in awe that I had employment that required me to get out and talk to people and to develop relationships. How lucky was I! My ability to do this is something I had been finding challenging – mainly because I took it for granted. I thought this was something everyone was comfortable with and could do well. That’s just not the case. I now really value my ability to do this.

Thank you to everyone involved with our project – the people we met on the street, those we interviewed and hung out with for days on end. The people who put their hands up to become Weavers, Promoters and Networks. To the City of Salisbury for encouraging and supporting me to undertake this secondment – in particular Pam Pindral and our CEO John Harry. Thanks to the extended team at TACSI, I’ve learnt so much for you all as well – none of which has been touched on here.

Most of all I would like to thank that wonderful, amazing, special bunch of people known as the Rads. Chris, Sarah, Dan, Ryan, Adele, Jess and Sandhya. You all hold a special place in my heart. I am so proud of what we have achieved this year. Learning and running a live project at the same time has had its challenges but we’ve done a bloody great job. Let’s get Care Reflect and Weavers scaling and spreading throughout the country. Imagine the difference it will make. Think about it.

Jenna is seconded to the TACSI from Salisbury Council, where for the last five years she has been part of the team that runs the innovative Jack Young Centre for older people. A graduate in recreation, planning and management, she has experience of working in residential and recreational services for older people. Jenna is looking forward to learning a different way of working and embedding what she learns at the City of Salisbury.

Host a Weaver gathering

Sandhya Sharma — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 15:44:00 +1100

Weavers is a new role - akin to a midwife - for friends & family in caring situations. It’s not a support group. It’s not a professional service. It’s people who have been in the thick of caring and share the know-how they gained along the way.

Gatherings are a new kind of conversation, facilitated by a Weaver, to deal with that elephant in the room: how to care for mum, dad, aunty Sue, neighbour Tom as they get older and crook.

We’re designing Gatherings for groups of friends or family who are on the brink of caring. Maybe mum and dad are thinking of downsizing and moving to a retirement village, or grandma has been slowing down lately.

We know it’s not a conversation most people want to have. But we also have seen what happens when it gets to be too late. When mum or dad ends up in hospital, and there isn’t a plan in place. That’s what happened to a guy we met named Frank:

Frank’s Dad had a fall and wasn’t able to return to his own home. They hadn’t discussed things until crisis hit. Frank’s Dad got transferred to a nursing home - the first one available not one they had chosen.

Looking after or caring for friends and family is a big thing - but it doesn’t have to look like it always has. Gatherings are a space to share alternative ways of caring for friends and family. You can hear the different ways Weavers made caring work for them; learn what services are out there and which ones are better than others; and get access to a database of really specific strategies and resources for your family.

Help us design & test how these gatherings happen, and ways to make this conversation really useful for others.

As a host, we’ll ask you to convene a small group of friends or colleagues who are starting to think about caring. We’ll bring the wine, or other beverage of choice. And we’ll run a gathering to see what you think. It’s a prototype - so we’re after your honest feedback and ideas.

Just like any other part of the prototype, we’re on a tight schedule and are looking to hold Gathering before October 31st. If you’re interested in being involved, give us a call on (08) 7325 4902 or send us an email at hello@weavers.org.au

Being raised in a start up

Lauren Simpson — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 14:00:00 +1100

As Family by Family celebrates its first birthday, I've been reflecting on what we as Family by Family staff have achieved. With a fair amount of pride I can safely say that we've achieved a huge amount. I've also been reflecting on what we can do better.

My biggest challenge since joining Family by Family has been a very typical struggle to balance my work and home lives. I have two young children and a partner who works full time. I need to be explicit here and point out that I love working (part time) and actually think that I'm a better mother for it. However, much like having children, no one can prepare you for being a part of a start up organisation.

Children or no children, it's a constant juggling act. I've needed to find the balance between continually going out of my comfort zone, trying new things and making mistakes in order to move forward with making sure I've looked after myself to be able to recover, reflect and create. It's been a year long roller coaster ride and there have been times I've wanted to get off. I'm sure I'm not alone.

So what's kept me on? Support. And in a start up where there is a lack of established systems in place to help guide us, good relationships become crucial. With so much at stake it's easy to become absorbed in your own work and pressures. Even having the time to think about what others are doing and how they're feeling can seem impossible but we must. I have also learnt that innovation and creativity requires accepting vulnerability. I wonder if once we begin to accept our own vulnerability as being useful as opposed to a weakness will we become more supportive and understanding of those around us?

I am grateful. I have flexible work hours to suit my family's needs and I work with a great bunch of people for whom I have much admiration and respect. But as we begin the next phase of our start up and begin to scale, we need to think about sustainability. We want people to mostly enjoy the roller coaster ride and to begin to appreciate vulnerability. What systems can we put in place to ensure that every member of our team feels supported? How do we ensure that a rift doesn't occur between people out in the field and the people in the office like it does at so many workplaces?

Recently we released our first independent evaluation report of Family by Family. Outcomes for families taking part in Family by Family were overwhelmingly positive. Approximately 90% of families reported that things were going better or heaps better for them. If we want to continue having these great results for families in the long term then we have to support the people working with them. One of our next big challenges is how we might do that.

Prototyping business modeling fit for people

Dan Mohr — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 17:00:00 +1100

In prototyping mode we tend to err on the side of doing over talking about doing. The last week didn’t leave much spare time for reflective blog posts in between working with the Weavers and Care Reflect team to calculate different business model options for different partners. What if Care Reflect loops were the professional development solution for community care services that make cities truly and measurably Age-Friendly? What if Weavers was the hyperlocal app that lets every baby boomer plan their caring future, and then a road trip or their finances.

‘Business models’ are the tools that help us turn the solutions that help people like Brett shift how he feels, thinks, acts, and his everyday outcomes. ‘Model’ because it observes the real solution, takes what’s critical to and leaves out what doesn’t contribute to great outcomes. So it reduces the solution to its critical components, say the Local Connector in Weavers. For each of the experiences, say Vetting Weaver’s Reflections, it compares the cost it incures, say logging onto the Backend System, to the revenue the experience can generate. We call it a ‘business model’ because at end of an iterative process the solution must break even. Revenue equals at least cost with a small surplus to be ploughed back into the solution.

But business modeling techniques are a bit like accounting standards or meat pies - they all seem to look the same but dig even just a bit deeper and opinions vary more widely than at an economists’s convention.

So, we’ve started with the business model over many iterations. I’ll spare you the details of the iterations in between (for now). The first model was an example from home and community services. The current and close to final example is what we call a Great Living business modeling standard.

Costing of Great Living outcomes

We’ve prototyped Care Reflect and Weavers to no less than to change outcomes for cared for and family carers like Brett and his sister and dad.

Most of community care systems that we’ve observed measure success by output. Outputs such as how many hours of respite support did Brett receive.

We’ve had to adapt this way of modeling. Rather than measuring how much an output costs to deliver on, it seemed the right thing to do is to measure as well how much it costs to deliver an outcome. We’ve found that people who look after family and friends, people like Brett, care about what changes in their lives for the better Can Brett find help and organise studies or a job while looking after his family?

The question we are now able to answer is to calculate to get to be able to say that as part of Weavers Brett has moved from thinking about to arranging help with 3 Weavers sessions that cost, say, $400. In reality, this is complex because of factors that drive how successful the weaving is, including what happens to Brett’s network outside of the Weaver journey. There are many other factors external to the Weaver journey. But what we’re working towards to is to be able to say that an outcome of having family friends and professional friends to help caring at a minimum of will cost no more than $500.

We believe this is a crucial step towards being able to compare different programs by their effectiveness to deliver outcomes rather than their outputs, such as service hours per tax payer dollars. The objective is to shift the debate with partners from, say, “I fund Care Reflect because the program is cheaper to deliver 3 care hours a week” to a debate leading to “I support Care Reflect because it achieves Great Living outcomes for Consumer Directed Care clients more effectively than any other professional development solution”.

2. Experience Based Costing in lieu of resources costing

OK, I admit it, this innovation is blatantly raided in the spirit of Steve Jobs from services businesses, such as supermarkets, banks, airlines or logistics companies such as United Parcel Service. It puts a number on how much a scene that contributes to great living outcomes costs to deliver.

Most initiatives in aged care, or other social services, we’ve come across stop at costing the resources that contribute to deliver it. The care worker, the training booklets, the expenses. If more users use the program more frequently, more often the business model doesn’t stack up any more. The result are yearly limits on client numbers and waiting times reminiscent of queues in planned economies.

Instead of just calculating these resources, clever companies like UPS know exactly what profit they make from an experience, say shipping a parcel. If a customer asks for a experience, eg. send a 1kg parcel via airmail from Adelaide to Brisbane, UPS quotes a rate that covers its costs plus a certain profit markup.

UPS and other service businesses are able to determine its actual cost thanks to an Activity Based Costing system. The system takes resources in an organisation, such as a delivery van driver, and attributes a share of the cost of the resource to each of the parcels that he delivers, his activities during a work day. This way UPS or us for a Care Reflect training day can package and put a price tag on individual interactions that covers the share of resources that went into making them happen. In the case of Care Reflect, as a scene unfolds we’ve been measuring with a Resources Tracker tool how much it costs to run, say a reflective loop for respite care workers. The tracker measures what resources are used for how long to make the activities that add up to the experience of a reflective loop. Thanks to the tracker we can give a very realistic estimate of how much an outcome will cost.

3. Rapid value development

Last but not least, we’re all about working with people like Brett because for us time is both, money and outcomes. Analogous to the time value of money we’ve used the time value of outcomes in our business modeling of the minimum viable solutions of Weavers and Care Reflect. Solutions that are able to start immediately after we’ve blueprinted prototypes at the beginning of November - to be discussed in part III of Prototyping business modeling coming very soon.