CREATE Project Bulletin – March 30, 2019

March 28, 2019

From the Directors’ Desk – Professors Ross Homel and Greer Johnson (Co-Directors): This month we have continued to support the roll-out of Rumble’s Quest in Queensland State Schools. While we have shifted the focus of the project in 2019 to implementation and Doing Together, the work to enable Deciding Together continues in the background. This includes direct phone calls to each school, a major task given that there are 149 state schools in Queensland CfC communities. The hope is that at least 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 we have assembled, to compute the 23 community-level child risk and protective factor scores. This work will enable us to return to Deciding Together in 2020.

Ross met recently with our partners in the NSW Department of Education regarding how best to invite public schools in that state to use Rumble’s Quest. We are optimistic that early in Term 2 emails can be sent to principals, initating the process of Rumble’s Quest implementation and community data generation.

With the shift to Doing Together and implementation this year, work will focus on how to support the delivery of evidence-based programs with fidelity and, where adaption is considered necessary, how best to approach this in a way that does not reduce the effectiveness of the program. Sara Branch is currently working with a group of CIFs to identify factors that, in their experience, may affect the Doing Together phase.The overall perspective of Doing Together is not just individual program implementation, critical as that is, but system change. This means, at the very least, that we need to focus simultaneously on implementation by Community Partner organisations, community coalitions, and schools.

Sadly, at the end of June most of the Collective Impact Facilitators will be finishing up in their positions. CIFs, the project team, and NGO-FP representatives will all meet in Brisbane in May to review the journey of the CIFs over the past two years. At this workshop they will also consider data from interviews and surveys with CIFs and other stakeholders, the collection of which is expected to be commenced shortly. CIFs’ reflections on the data will contribute to a collaborative report on the CIF Role. This two-day workshop will be facilitated by Karen Russell, from Walk the Walk. The project team and NGO-FP representatives will then meet to plan how best to support project CfC sites for the remainder of 2019 and into 2020.

Of course the future of the Communities for Children program post-2020, after 15 years of continuous operation, is presently unclear and will no doubt depend to some extent on the outcome of the forthcoming national election. What does seem clear from both sides of politics, however, is that government supported place-based programs directed at child and family wellbeing are here to stay, in one form or another. And of course schools, preschools, and kindergartens are enduring developmental institutions that, together with the family, will long remain as the most potent influences on the development of young children. For these reasons we are confident that the methodologies and resources that are being developed, tested, and refined in this project will be in great demand long into the future, both within Australia and internationally.

 

CIF Gathering – 9-10th May: As indicated in Ross and Greer’s report, the Collective Impact Facilitators, the project team, and NGO-FP representatives will gather in Brisbane on the 9-10th of May. This workshop is designed not just as an opportunity to review the journey of the CIFs over the past two years but to celebrate what they have achieved. Between now and May interviews (and surveys) with CIFs and other stakeholders will be conducted, and the data analysed to identify general themes. These themes will then be unpacked and discussed by the group during the workshop. After the workshop some of these themes may be expanded, and feature in a forthcoming report on the work of the CIFs in Phase 2. Each CIF will also be asked to develop a Case Study for the report based on a theme of their choosing.

 

FEATURE – Kingston State School, Queensland

Stephanie Crick (Principal), Jo Bird (Guidance Officer)

This month we wanted to feature a school within one of the communities that CREATE is working with.

Kingston State School, within Logan, has been doing some great things to foster student wellbeing, and the results are really showing.

Stephanie Crick the Principal at the school states “Our mission is Collaborate • Innovate • Elevate • Celebrate…Through collaborative processes and innovative practices we progress student achievement and celebrate success across the curriculum. We recognise the importance of positive relationships and are committed to the development of the whole child, inclusive of their cognitive, creative, physical, and social emotional development.”
At Kingston State School, they value the social-emotional development and wellbeing of their students as well as the involvement of parents and carers in the learning of their children.

But they couldn’t do this alone. As the saying goes – it takes a village to raise a child and, in this school, this collective effort is evident. Kingston State School embraces the many positive contributions through the involvement of the wider community in their school. For example, the YMCA has a long and proud history of supporting the school through their daily Breakfast Program. The school is very grateful to the many volunteers from their community who make it possible for students and families of the school to start each day with a nourishing meal.
The Salvation Army Communities for Children supports the school in multiple ways, including a surfing adventure last year and sponsoring student camps.

The Queensland Police Service also has close ties with the school through the Adopt-a-Cop program, with the school’s Adopt-a-Cops participating in school discos, excursions and camps.
Bunnings has generously supported the school to develop their Indigenous Garden, they also support fundraising and have provided resources for school projects.

Mob Kinnectors, a community-driven initiative aligned to children and schooling, supports the school through weekly engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. The Mob Kinnectors program focuses on identity, strengths and empowerment. The program also acknowledges that true engagement is a shared responsibility of parents, families, schools and communities across all phases of learning and the multiple settings where children learn.

Kingston East Neighbourhood Group facilitates the weekly Playgroup for the school’s families and beyond as well as offering small group parenting and lifestyle workshop opportunities.
McDonald’s Restaurants support the school through an incentive-based before-school reading program called Reading Rocks.

The school has developed a Tree House, a room students can access to support their emotional regulation. It offers students a safe space to reflect and think and provides opportunities for co-regulation with a trusted adult. This space works in conjunction with several other initiatives the school has introduced over the last couple of years that focus on students’ wellbeing. For instance, Kingston State School implements The Zones of Regulation program for self-regulation. Through this program students throughout the school learn helpful ways to use strategies for self-regulation. Students are also learning how to identify their own individual support strategies. These recognised strategies are then added to their ‘invisible tool kits’ to carry with them wherever they go, as they grow and learn at school, high school and beyond in their adult lives.

 

 

The Tree House was recently gifted with a very impressive wall size mural, depicted in the photograph. The mural was painted by local Grandmother Maureen Wood, and the designed artwork includes many animals that have a different family make-up, like the male emu as the primary carer for his chicks. This creates a parallel to the students’ own family circumstances and life experiences. The impressive mural is loved by students and staff and has become another tool to support students with their big emotions, assisting them to calm and settle.
Stephanie proudly reports that the school’s behavioural data has improved by a remarkable 52% as a result of collaborative empowerment. Such is the power of the village!

 

FEATURE – Project Partner

Bev Flückiger

This month we are featuring one half of the team that is leading the Family-School-Community component of the CREATE Project – Professor Bev Flückiger.

Bev Flückiger is a Professor in the School of Education & Professional Studies at Griffith University, and sits on the executive committees of both the Queensland Professional Development Network for school leaders, and the Queensland branch of Early Childhood Australia.

Bev’s research and consulting interests include family-school-community relationships, leadership for learning, and pedagogies in early childhood education.

Prior to joining Griffith University, Bev held positions in a diverse range of schools as a school Principal, Deputy Principal, curriculum leader and early childhood teacher. As a school leader in the Inala cluster, she worked closely with Ross Homel and Kate Freiberg to engage her school, its families and community in the Pathways to Prevention project in order strengthen the development of children and promote supportive family-school-community relationships.

Recently Bev has led research and professional learning in 124 Queensland schools to support pedagogical change in the early years. The Queensland Department of Education (DET) project, Age Appropriate Pedagogies in the Early Years of School engaged school leaders and teachers in action research as a vehicle for both informing and leading pedagogical change processes and ensuring children’s learning experiences are active, creative, collaborative, playful, responsive, and language-rich. Its innovative design demonstrated the potential positive impacts which can be generated when systems, schools and universities work together.

Bev’s particular interest is leadership in the early years of school to ensure that all children have the opportunity to engage in learning, exercise agency, and experience success. To this end she is currently working with Professor Greer Johnson in three school communities to improve the reading outcomes for Indigenous children, especially those living in remote communities.

 

THINGS THAT MADE US SMILE THIS MONTH

This is where we share great things to read, listen to, attend and more! Let us know if you discover anything you would like us to share in our next newsletter.

CIF Get Together: The Collective Impact Facilitators were smiling when they met in Newcastle this month.
At this get together the CIFs shared their current practices and what they have been doing in their respective communities. Unfortunately, not all CIFs were able to attend.

The CIFs and project personnel will meet in Brisbane in May to review their journeys and discuss contributions to a CIF Report.

 

UPCOMING MEETINGS AND EVENTS

CREATE Executive Committee (CEC) Meeting: The CEC will meet on the 8th of April. The agenda and minutes from the February 12th meeting are stored on the Project Management Portal.

CREATE Q&A Teleconference: Members of the project team are available at a Q&A teleconference for anyone interested in continuing the conversation. Each month we will be discussing a specific topic. This time we will focus our discussion around the topic of Implementation: Fidelity and Adpation as well as reporting progress with Rumble’s Quest. April’s Q&A details are:

2pm (Brisbane; Sydney) Tuesday April 16th
Call: 1 800 896 323 and enter Participant Code: 96583305#

 

CIF Workshop 9-10th May: In May the CIFs and project personnel will meet in Brisbane to review their journeys over the past couple of years and discuss contributions to a CIF Report. This workshop will be facilitated by Karen Russell who facilitated the previous two project plenary meetings.

Mark the Following Dates: details to follow

30th October – Implementing Community Based Prevention (open to all) – South Bank Campus, Brisbane

31st October – Doing Together (implementation) Masterclass (open to all) – South Bank Campus, Brisbane

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

 

WHAT’S NEW IN THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PORTAL

(Items added in March)

Project Governance

• CREATE-ing Pathways Project Communication Plan APPROVED 3-12-18 – UPDATED FEB 2019 – posted March 2019

CIF Role – Updates to CIFs

• Update to CIFs – Update to CIFs – 5-3-19 to 11-3-19 – posted 19-3-19
• Update to CIFs – Update to CIFs – 18-2-19 to 4-3-19 – posted 3-5-19

Project Updates – CIF Reports

• 2019 February CIF REFLECTION REPORT – posted 18-3-19

 

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

Category: Project Newsletter

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