CREATE Project Bulletin – July 31, 2019

August 1, 2019

CREATE May RoundUP

31st July, 2019

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

From the Directors’ Desk – Professors Ross Homel and Greer Johnson

(Co-Directors)

This month we all got back to work after some enforced but much needed leave.

During her leave, Sara Branch attended the Society for Prevention Research conference in San Francisco where she presented a poster titled People matter when supporting change; Change matters when supporting people. While at the conference she talked to researchers and practitioners about their application of Communities That Care in a range of contexts including Chile, and attended a workshop on Research Practitioner Partnerships.

The good news in June was that on the 24th, 184 Public Schools in NSW were invited to use Rumble’s Quest. Since then the research team has been liasing with Network Specialists to arrange a webinar to brief them about Rumble’s Quest, the project and how they can support the use of Rumble’s Quest in NSW schools. If appropriate, webinars for clusters of schools will be provided. Similarly, presentations to networks of schools in Queensland are being organised, with other techniques for getting the ‘word out’ being discussed with the respective Departments. Malcolm Elliot, President APPA, has also been assisting the research team to make contact with his state colleagues in NSW and Queensland. He is helping by promoting Rumble’s Quest to APPA members through their newsletter.

The research team has begun the process of approaching the Catholic sector about Rumble’s Quest and received a very positive response from the Catholic Schools Education Commission in Queensland. As it is still early days the timing for the roll-out of Rumble’s Quest into the Catholic sector is unknown.

As highlighted in the March newsletter the hope is that up to 50% of schools within each CfC community (both action and business as usual) will have consented to participate in the project and use Rumble’s Quest at least once in 2019. Once we have achieved this milestone we can combine the aggregate Rumble’s Quest data with 2015 AEDC item scores, as well as the government administrative data assembled, to compute the 23 community-level child risk and protective factor scores for each CfC community (including at the SA2 level where possible). Thus the research team do not expect that CfC communities will be receiving their child risk and protective factor scores until 2020.

Also in June, the ANU economic analysis team (Associate Professor Matthew Manning and Dr Gabriel Wong) was invited to attend a committee meeting in one Communities for Children site (the ANU team have been working with this site to develop the Economic Support and Reporting Tool). This meeting was hosted by the Smith Family in collaboration with local community partners. During the meeting, Gabriel Wong introduced updates made to the Excel-based beta version of the Economic Support and Reporting Tool (ESRT). The team also discussed data collection in the next phase and how these data will be entered into the ESRT. In addition, the benefits associated with using the ESRT were discussed. The ESRT is currently under development as an APP that will be eventually integrated into the coalition dashboard which is accessed by program managers via creatingpathways.org.au – community coalition portal. A beta version of the APP will be available for comment towards the end of 2019.

We are also continuing to progress planning for the upcoming Symposium and Workshop planned for October 30th and 31st (see Upcoming Meetings and Events). Shortly a Steering Committee will meet to discuss the Symposium in particular. Please feel free to promote these events to others within your networks. We look forward to seeing as many as our partners at this event.

Sara Branch also met with a number of the CIFs who are continuing on in the role. She is supporting the development of a small Community of Practice that will explore ways to link theory to practice and ground practice in theory.

Finally we are refining the newsletter approach so that communications are more specific and targeted. The RoundUP newsletter will now be released every second month. In the alternate month, a brief but more targeted newsletter designed especially for Program Managers will be provided. We look forward to any feedback you have in response to this change.

Contributions WelcomeContributions from project partners to the RoundUP are welcome. If you have an idea for a feature, event or just something that made you smile please contact Sara Branch (s.branch@griffith.edu.au) for inclusion in future RoundUPs.

 

FEATURE – The Family, School, Community Engagement Research and Professional Learning Program

Professor Greer Johnson and Professor Bev Flückiger

The Professional Learning Program is based on Epstein’s (1995) theory that three overlapping spheres (the school, family, community) collectively influence children’s learning and development. This theory places the child at the intersection of the three spheres of influence and suggests the child serves to learn more when individuals in all spheres interact cohesively with students to support their learning in particular environments. The project is also informed by Auerbach’s (2012) theory of authentic engagement that positions educators, families and community groups in respectful alliances that value relationship building, dialogue across difference and sharing power to achieve a common purpose. This means that individuals in the three spheres of influence are empowered to share leadership for children’s well-being and learning. In practice families, schools and community form coalitions to share leadership decision-making and actions. These theories are consistent with collective leadership (O’Neill & Brinkerhoff, 2017) which assumes that coalition members are inherently capable and can be trusted to do the right thing to achieve the goal. Collective leadership recognises that success comes from the diverse perspectives and skills of many; thus, it embraces both a strengths-based approach and the concept of collective impact.

The strengths-based approach and the collective impact concepts are enacted through the CREATE model (Homel, Freiberg, Branch, 2015): a set of principles and an action methodology underpinned by good governance and community empowerment. CREATE is a framework that builds capacity for collective impact through school, family, community coalitions that enhance the ability of child‐serving organisations to operate as part of an integrated system of care for children and families.

The Professional Learning  component of the  CREATE Project employs two valuable resources designed to assist schools, families and community organisations to reach their goals in understanding and strengthening children’s well-being as a pathway to greater achievement in learning inside and outside schools. The first resource is Rumble’s Quest and has been discussed in previous RoundUPs. Resource 2, consists of the Professional Learning Program, developed by Professors Greer Johnson & Bev Flückiger, from the Griffith Institute for Educational Research (GIER).

The Professional Learning Program aims to strengthen school leaders’ understanding of authentic family-school-community relationships and support them to establish collaborative teams to strengthen children’s wellbeing.

The Professional Learning Program provides blended learning opportunities and arises from the following six stages:

  1. Online survey. An online survey is completed by participants to help them identify their perspectives on family-school-community engagement. A personal report will be generated and used to inform reflection and discussion; and clarify thinking in relation to the concepts presented in the literature.
  2. Review of the literature. The review is systematic and provides a reproducible, reliable, quantitative assessment of the current status of literature related to family-school-community engagement. Key characteristics and strategies found to assist school leaders, families and communities to form sustainable collaborations and support children’s well-being and learning are presented.
  3. Disciplined Dialogue to analyse data.  Rumbles Quest and other school data (e.g. attendance, behavior, achievement and effort in key learning areas) and any other data related to children’s well-being and achievement will be analysed using Disciplined Dialogue (DD) (Dempster &  Swaffield, 2009). Three questions in DD guide data analyses: What do we see in these data? Why are we seeing what we are?  What, if anything, should we be doing about it?
  4. The ‘So What’ Factor. School leaders will invite representatives of school staff, family and community to form a team. The purpose of the team is to monitor data collection consider the findings from the data analysis as a basis for negotiating the planning and implementation of a place-based project designed to strengthen children’s well-being and achievement.
  5. Impact of the Professional Learning Program. After completing the Professional Learning Program, including the children’s well-being and achievement project (6-12 months later) the following instruments will be re-administered to monitor change in school leaders’ perspectives on family-school-community engagement and children’s well-being: School leaders online survey and Rumble’s Quest.
  6. In-depth interviews. Approximately 10 school leaders (selection to reflect a range of school projects) will be interviewed to capture the strategic actions and distinctive features of school leadership that drive successful staff, families and community teams. The interview schedule will include questions such as: What key actions helped sustain the coalition? How was leadership shared across your team? How did the teams’ actions and strategies change over time? The interview data will be examined to create case studies as models for schools undertaking similar work.

References

Auerbach, S., (2012). School leadership for authentic family and community partnerships: Research perspectives for transforming practice. Routledge.

O’Neill  & Brinkerhoff. (2017). Five elements of collective leadership. St. Paul: Redleaf Press.

Epstein, J. L. (1995,).School/family/community partnerships: Caring for the children we share. Phi Delta Kappan, 701–712.

Homel, R., Freiberg, K & Branch, S. (2015). CREATE-ing capacity to take developmental crime prevention to scale: A community-based approach within a national framework. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology. 48(3), 367-385.

Swaffield, S., and N. Dempster. 2009. A learning dialogue. In Connecting leadership and learning: Principles for practice, ed. J. MacBeath and N. Dempster, 106–20. London: Routledge.

 

THINGS THAT MADE US SMILE THIS MONTH

Top-down – Bottom-Up Research to Practice Approach – Sara Branch smiled when she received the following feedback from a CIF in relation to the committee meeting where the Eonomic Support and Reporting Tool (ESRT) was discussed with Associate Professor Matthew Manning and Dr Gabriel Wong – [Gabriel’s] presentation and the discussion about the tool’s value was incredibly fruitful and committee members expressed interest in continuing to provide feedback on the tool, as per the top-down/bottom-up research to practice approach being taken.

 

UPCOMING MEETINGS AND EVENTS

Mark the Following Dates

CREATE Q&A Teleconference: Members of the project team are available at a Q&A teleconference for anyone interested in continuing the conversation. August’s Q&A details are:

2.30pm (Brisbane; Sydney) Tuesday August 20th   

Call: 1 800 896 323 and enter Participant Code: 96583305#

 

30th October – Community Based Prevention and Implementation: Achievements and Challenges (open to all)

31st October – Implementation Science and Practice: Introduction to Key Concepts (open to all)

Venue: The Ship Inn Function Centre, South Brisbane, QLD 4101

30 October 2019 Symposium:
Community Based Prevention and Implementation: Achievements and Challenges
9.00 am – 5.00 pm

31 October 2019 Workshop:
Implementation Science and Practice: Introduction to Key Concepts
9.00 am – 4.00 pm

Collaborative action to plan and implement appropriate supports for children, families, and communities can be a challenge. This is not due to any lack of good will but rather to the numerous barriers embedded in our organisations and communities, a lack of resources and tools that support collaborative evidence-driven practice, and limitations in how we think about ‘what is needed’. At the Community Based Prevention and Implementation Symposium and Implementation Science and Practice Workshop, we are bringing together leading Australian and international practitioners and researchers to share emerging knowledge about system transformation and how evidence-based services can be implemented to achieve measurable improvements in the wellbeing of children, families, and communities.


Speaking at each event will be

Dr. Brian K. Bumbarger

Brian is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Griffith University Institute of Criminology (Queensland) as well as Visiting Research Associate with the Prevention Research Center in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Colorado State University. For over two decades he has conducted research and advised policymakers on dissemination, implementation, and sustainment of evidence-based programs and practices to strengthen families and communities. From 2008-2016 Dr. Bumbarger served as Founding Director and Principal Investigator of the Evidence-based Prevention and Intervention Support Center (EPISCenter), a state-level intermediary supporting communities and government systems in the largest-ever dissemination of evidence-based programs and community collective impact coalitions, with over 300 sites. The EPISCenter has been cited internationally as an exemplar for bridging research, policy and practice to improve child and family outcomes and government services. Brian is currently working to replicate learnings from that endeavour throughout the United States and across the world.


Deborah Ghate, D. Phil, FAcSS
Deborah is a researcher, analyst, consultant and organisational leader specialising in implementation science and practice for child and family services. She is Chief Executive of the independent non-profit Colebrooke Centre for Evidence and Implementation (www.cevi.org.uk) which works in the UK and internationally on research and consultancy in applied implementation science. Before that she set up and ran the Centre for Effective Services in Ireland (an implementation support centre funded by government and philanthropy) and founded and directed a leading independent policy research centre in London. She is Chair of the UK Implementation Society (UK-IS; www. ukimplementation.org.uk) and was elected a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences in 2016. Deborah is currently writing about and working on multiple themes in the application of implementation and improvement science in practice and policy, including systems leadership, co-creation, scaling and using theories of change for quality improvement.


Find out more or register here

 

 Registration Type Early bird registrations before 30 August 2019.
Registrations after 30 August 2019.
30 October Symposium registration  $220 $240
31 October Workshop registration $250 $270
30 October Symposium and 31 October Workshop registration $460 $490

 

1st November – Project Plenary Meeting (invited project partners only) – South Bank Campus, Brisbane

 

WHAT’S NEW IN THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PORTAL

(Items added in June-July)

Project Updates – CIF Reports

  • 2019 May-June CIF REFLECTION REPORT – posted 17-7-19

 

Please go to the Project Management Portal to view these and other project documents. All project partner representatives and CIFs have access to view these documents. To access the portal: http://www.creatingpathways.org.au/project-management/project-management-portal

 

 

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