Disrupting Disadvantage
There are many initiatives aiming to break cycles of disadvantage and welfare dependency. We believe we stand the best chance of disrupting intergenerational disadvantage if we concurrently:
- Work with whole families
- Develop inclusive local economies
- Stop escalation before it starts
- See crisis points as turning points
- Activate lived experience as a resource
Our insights are informed by 8 years of work in child protection, justice, education and economic development. We’re seeking partners to:
- Conduct discrete experiments that test these insights
- Take on system-wide and place-based experiments that leverage multiple interventions
- Build and share the evidence of what works
- Build a movement of organisations and families that believe in this work
Working with whole families
We believe that many responses over-focus on individuals in a family, missing the opportunity to address root causes, prevent escalation and create whole-of-family impact.
In NSW we’re working on redesigning systems of restoration to create positive outcomes for children and parents who have experienced removal. This includes spreading effective restoration practice and Coparenthood – a new ‘shared parenting’ approach to foster care that supports safe restoration.
Developing inclusive local economies
We believe that regions need to provide pathways for families experiencing risk and crisis to learn, grow and participate in society and the economy.
In regional Victoria we’ve identified opportunities to better connect local people to existing local work opportunities. This includes developing new approaches to transport, human resourcing, industry development and career planning.
Seeing crisis points as turning points
We believe that crisis responses, should be restorative – healing families and setting them on a positive trajectory. Smarter still is stopping escalation before it starts.
In Victoria the Koori Caucus are leading systemic innovations in justice to reduce the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and further self-determination. We’re supporting the prototyping of five key initiatives within community and across the justice continuum.
Activating lived experience
We believe that the lived experience of those who have got through tough times is an invaluable and under-utilised resource. People with lived experience can provide effective peer support and inform system redesign, and they themselves can grow through these activities.
We’ve designed, run and are building an evidence base for Family by Family – a model that finds and trains families who have got through tough times to support those currently in tough times. The program creates outcomes in child safety, family wellbeing, education and employment.