Background
At TACSI, we’ve seen first-hand how peer-to-peer support can change lives, from families navigating tough times together to carers and communities backing each other in ways traditional services would struggle to achieve.
Together with our partners at the Uniting Communities and the South Australian government, we’ve released a new report that looks at the long term outcomes of one of our very first peer-to-peer initiatives, Family by Family.
Multiple evaluations of the program have been completed over the years that show positive outcomes for families, but this new evaluation is the first to look at long term outcomes for families. It proves that the program can successfully engage families at risk, and reduce entry into care and visitations to ED.
This work has convinced us of the potential of peer-to-peer to help reinvent our public services, and has strengthened our commitment to work with government and philanthropy to support peer-to-peer into new areas, and build an economic and moral case for peer-to-peer in our systems more broadly.
About BetterStart
BetterStart is a multidisciplinary research group within the School of Public Health at Adelaide University, focused on improving life chances for children. We partnered with BetterStart to conduct a quasi-experimental randomised control trial, evidencing the effectiveness of our peer-to-peer program Family by Family.
About Family by Family
The Family by Family model was developed by TACSI in 2010 through a co-design process with families in South Australia. The program finds and trains families who have been through tough times (and have come out the other side) to support families currently in tough times who want something in their lives to change. The model connects families in goal-focussed link-ups that lasts 10-30 weeks.
The program is delivered in South Australia by Uniting Communities with TACSI providing quality, impact and evidence building support and funding from the South Australian government. The program has also run in Mount Druitt, New South Wales and Stoke-on-Trent, UK.
Download the Report
Fill in the form below to download the report. A download link will appear on submission.
We'll also send you an email containing the link for future reference.
The research and evaluation process
The evaluation, conducted by the BetterStart Group, investigated the long-term outcomes for children participating in the Family by Family peer-to-peer support program in the 24 months following their participation.
The effect of the program was evaluated, using a quasi-experimental approach, on a range of outcomes including child protection contact, emergency department presentations, hospitalisations, and homelessness.
To conduct the evaluation:
Data from the Family by Family program was linked into the BEBOLD platform that contains de-identified data on 1.5 million young people in South Australia and their parents, and spans more than 30 different government administrative data sources including data on child protection, births, emergency department usage, and homelessness.
Participant data was de-identified within the platform through the linkage process.
A comparison group was identified within the BEBOLD data that includes families who were eligible for the program, didn’t receive the program and share characteristics with the participating families.
This approach has enabled the rigorous evaluation of long-term outcomes without the financial, ethical and practical challenges of conducting a randomised control trial.
What we learnt
Family by Family is engaging families with significantly higher and more complex needs than the general population.
Family by Family participation led to a 44% relative reduction in the risk of children being removed into out-of-home care over 24 months.
Family by Family participation led to a 6% relative reduction in the risk of children presenting to an emergency department over 24 months.
Multiple evaluations of the program have been completed over the years that show positive outcomes for families, but this new evaluation is the first to look at long term outcomes for families. It shows that the program can successfully engage families at risk, and reduce entry into care and visitations to the emergency department.
Realising the potential of peer-to-peer practice
Since the inception of Family by Family, TACSI has designed more peer-to-peer models and supported multiple not-for-profits to start their own bespoke peer response. Additionally, TACSI has supported governments to create the conditions for peer-to-peer through policy and practice.
This work has convinced TACSI of the potential of peer-to-peer to help reinvent our public services – we see the benefits of a broader take up of peer-to-peer across service systems – in the context of overburdened services and fragmented society.
Now our focus, as the national centre for social innovation, is to realise the potential of peer-to-peer nationally.
We are committed to working with government and philanthropy to develop an initiative that will raise awareness, connect champions, support continued evidence building, support peer-to-peer into new areas, and further strengthen the economic and moral case for peer-to-peer in our systems more broadly.