This week In the Read looks at proposals to shift investment from the pointy end of child protection. Fams, a NSW peak body that supports the service delivery by non-government, not-for-profit organisations working with vulnerable children, young people, families and communities, released a concept paper, Investing in children and their families: The right support in the right place at the right time, in June 2018. Fams argues that significant additional investment is needed to fund true preventative action in order to support at risk children and families, slow the rate of entry to out of home care, and save the NSW Government money in the long-term. Fams recommends a coordinated approach to prevention and early intervention in which the NSW government and sector work together to better adopt, fund, measure, evaluate and iterate a service delivery model that satisfies best practice service delivery approaches. They argue it is unacceptable for government to fail to invest in prevention while increasing expenditure on out of home care, “a problem that is larger than it ought to be due to a failure to invest in prevention responses.”
A 2012 research brief by Casey Family Programs, ‘Shifting resources in child welfare to achieve better outcomes for children and families’ argues for reducing investments in program areas and services that are less effective in helping children and their families (i.e. de-scaling). As this does not diminish the challenges associated with implementing and sustaining evidence-based practices (e.g. building program infrastructure, maximising utility for specific populations and training costs, and maintaining program fidelity) and the reality that some interventions might be effective with certain populations and not others, the research brief describes how reinvestment is being used in other fields and applied in child welfare. It identifies program areas that could be scaled back to free up funds for more effective strategies to improve outcomes for children and families. You can read the Research Brief or the executive summary.