Page 1586 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 12 May 2015
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in a family to understand what is going well for a family and what could be improved through the right kind of service response. In this way the lead worker can work with families to tailor supports that respond to identified needs so that better outcomes can be achieved.
To show how this works I want to share the story of how strengthening families assisted a man with a disability and his family. In this case, the role of the lead worker was to co-design a tailored respite option that gave him a chance to get out and enjoy his life. Although the family had been getting support through respite services, the existing arrangements were not able to meet his needs within the family’s situation. For example, his mother often had to leave her workplace to pick up her son to care for him. This situation affected not only the young man, whose opportunity to be part of a community was limited, but also his mother’s job.
The lead worker had a critical role in working with the family to get a complete understanding of the complex issues faced by the family and identifying what was needed to address them. With the assistance of the lead worker in working across various agencies, the family were able to develop a real solution to their needs that could be sustained over time. This is an outcome that has made a positive difference to the whole family and demonstrates the holistic approach being taken by strengthening families. It is most successful because a single worker can see not just problems but strengths. A worker can know a family’s commitment to one other. They can see parents’ commitment to getting into or staying in the workforce.
As well, we are already seeing positive change in the way people are accessing support through the human services gateway in Nature Conservation House in Belconnen. For those who do not know, people can call into the gateway to access information and referral and be linked with the appropriate services. For example, people can come in to ask about housing and homelessness support, disability services or help for specific family issues. Workers at the gateway are trained to assist a person in a holistic way so that, if someone has a more complex need that requires a number of supports, they can be given a tailored service response.
A woman came in to drop off some information for her housing application. While she was there, she mentioned to a worker that she was now looking for a job. She said she had been out of the workforce for some time due to ill health. She was then able to talk to someone about the women’s return to work grants program and about her return to work plans. She was successful in getting a grant and has been able to start a certificate IV level training course.
I am confident that under the human services blueprint we will see many more examples that show that we are moving towards a truly inclusive human services system, one which supports inclusions across the city. It will be a system that works because people will be at the centre of service provision. It will work because services and supports are joined up and are united in their efforts to bring better outcomes for individuals, for the system and ultimately for our community.
The government is also applying these lessons to further develop a holistic and evidence-based response to domestic violence. To date, the ACT government have
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