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Family Relationships Services Program - Review of the Family Relationships Services Program - Urbis Keys Young - April 2004

Publication date: April 2004

Author: Urbis Keys Young

Executive Summary

Background

• The Family Relationships Services Program (FRSP) is a national program under which approximately 100 non-Government organisations across Australia provide services such as family relationships counselling, education, dispute resolution and other relationships support services. Commonwealth funding for the FRSP totalled some $59 million (GST included) in 2003-2004.  The Department of Family and Community Services (FaCS) manages the Program on behalf of itself and the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department (AGD).
• In October 2003 Urbis Keys Young was commissioned to carry out a review of the FRSP. The matters to be addressed by the review included information and program management, program and service quality, the mix of services provided, community linkages and collaboration, child-focused services, costs, and various other issues relating to the appropriateness and effectiveness of the FRSP.  The research undertaken by Urbis Keys Young included the following:
• face-to-face consultations with 42 FRSP-funded agencies, in 15 cities and towns across Australia, together with focus group research with practitioners (eg counsellors and mediators) in selected locations;
• inter-agency forums conducted in Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart, involving representatives of bodies such as the Family Court of Australia, the Federal Magistrates Court, Centrelink and State community or family services, as well as FaCS, AGD and the Industry Representative Bodies (IRBs) with which all FRSP-funded agencies are affiliated;
• consultations with FaCS, AGD and the Reference Group which was set up to provide advice on the review;
• consultations with other relevant experts and stakeholders;
• desk research on reports, statistical data and other material gathered in the course of the review;
• consideration of 33 written submissions lodged in relation to the review.
• The review was undertaken in a very short timeframe, from the end of October 2003 to early February 2004.

Findings and conclusions

• The FRSP has a number of strengths and assets which need to be retained and further built on. These include:
• a range of sub-programs which evidently meet real community needs and are sufficiently flexible to respond to changing situations
• generally high levels of community acceptance and client satisfaction
• a legislative base underpinning some of the sub-programs
• a funding base which has been maintained over a substantial period of time, making it possible for service delivery agencies to plan ahead with some confidence
• a diverse network of service providers and a body of experienced and committed workers
• well-developed linkages between many FRSP-funded agencies and other relevant government and non-government service providers
• the Client Input Study noted that the FRSP effectively addressed many of the family issues for which it is accessed.
• The review highlighted the fact that the FRSP currently lacks a clear frame of reference and clear objectives and priorities; among other things this affects the capacity of funders and agencies to ensure that scarce resources are used to maximum effect.  Articulation of FRSP goals will need to clarify the role of the FRSP in relation to other relevant Commonwealth and State/Territory programs and services.
• The FRSP would benefit from increased consultation and co-ordination with:
• other relevant FaCS programs, such as Stronger Families and Communities and Indigenous Parenting and WellBeing;
• other relevant Commonwealth agencies such as Centrelink and the Child Support Agency;
• relevant State and Territory programs and services; and
• the broader Family Law system.
• There is scope and need to strengthen the FRSP sector through increased contact, consultation and co-operation among funded agencies and among the three IRBs. Achieving this will require some changes in approach and priorities among agencies and the IRBs; FaCS and AGD can readily assist by promoting and supporting inter-agency activity such as joint training, cross-agency practitioner workshops, improved sharing of information and resources, and joint research projects. Refinement of certain aspects of the process of tendering for FRSP funds could help reduce any negative aspects of inter-agency competition.
• The FRSP has for some years suffered from inadequate funding, which reduces its capacity to sustain good-quality delivery of services, its capacity to provide equitable access to services and its capacity to meet emerging community needs. There is widespread agreement that substantially increased funding and services are required in this important policy area. For example, major recent reports such as the Family Law Pathways Advisory Group Report and the 2003 House of Representatives report on issues relating to child custody (Every Picture Tells a Story) have independently highlighted the critical importance of providing support to families in conflict and the need to expand relevant programs and services.  A doubling or more of FRSP funding could well be justified over the next few years.
• This review confirms the need for both a substantial and a well-planned increase in FRSP funding, to ensure the ongoing capacity of the FRSP sector and the sustainability of the services provided, and to address a range of significant service gaps. High priority needs include a substantial expansion of Children’s Contact Services and the Contact Orders Program, provision of counselling and dispute resolution services in rural and regional areas, development of services (possibly co-funded with other bodies) for Indigenous communities and for culturally/ linguistically diverse communities, and provision of services in various areas of rapid population growth.
• The FRSP has suffered from lack of direct engagement between program managers and service providers. Relevant factors here appear to include rapid turnover of program management personnel in Canberra, and lack of funds to allow managers to visit funded agencies and maintain a clear understanding of their work and the challenges they face. A proposed devolution of substantial FRSP management responsibilities to State and Territory offices of FaCS appears likely to support improved communication and liaison with funded agencies – so long as State/Territory offices are appropriately resourced for this task. Such a devolution would require improved arrangements for AGD, as well as FaCS, to stay in close touch with the Program, and ensuring that FaCS staff in the States and Territories have an understanding of key issues from AGD’s perspective.
• FaCSLink, the data collection and reporting tool for the FRSP, continues to be a source of difficulty and dissatisfaction both for FaCS and for funded agencies. The review pointed to a need to clarify a number of basic definitions and recording or classification requirements in order to improve the consistency and reliability of FaCSLink data, and to improve FaCSLink’s capacity to provide agencies with clear and accurate reports on basic aspects of service delivery. In light of the heavy investment that both funders and agencies have put into FaCSLink it should not be lightly abandoned, but it would be valuable to attempt to simplify and refine the system as well as clarifying issues that cause recurrent difficulty.

Given the limitations of any statistical recording system in relation to a human services program like the FRSP, qualitative reporting also needs to be used effectively; a simple and consistent method of using the annual Appraisal Reports that agencies already prepare would assist in this regard.

• In practice the key issue in ensuring and maintaining the quality of FRSP services is agency capacity to recruit and retain skilled, experienced and committed staff; among other things this raises funding issues relating to staff salaries and training. There is considerable scope to strengthen the sector through increased use of cross-agency and cross-IRB training.
• On the whole the Approval Requirements for FRSP-funded agencies seem fairly well accepted; however they need to be backed up by further progress in agreeing and adopting Good Practice standards and competency standards for individual practitioners.
• The need to serve ‘the best interests of the child’ is generally well recognised among agencies delivering FRSP services, and there is wide acceptance in the sector of the value of a child-focussed approach across all relevant activities. There is more variety among agencies in relation to adoption of child-inclusive practice, which entails the direct involvement of the child/ren in counselling, dispute resolution or other services. Key difficulties that agencies encounter with regard to child-inclusive practice include staffing and other direct service costs, plus the cost of relevant staff training. There is also a need for ongoing development of competency standards for child-inclusive practice.
• For a relatively small program, the FRSP appears to have a complicated structure involving eleven separately funded sub-programs. The introduction of ‘mixed schedule’ funding has given agencies increased discretion in the way they apply funds across certain sub-programs, but some agencies still argue for more discretion and flexibility in their use of FRSP funding.
• The review did not, however, identify any consensus on how the existing sub-program structure could or should be simplified. One option would be to consider amalgamating Mediation, Conciliation and Primary Dispute Resolution into a single Dispute Resolution sub-program (though this would require certain amendments to the Family Law Act). Other possibilities that can be considered include combining the Contact Orders Program and Children’s Contact Services sub-programs, and/or the Relationships Education and Family Relationships Skills Training sub-programs. Mixed schedule funding in these cases, however, might provide increased flexibility while still retaining some of the distinctive focus of particular sub-programs.
• In summary, the FRSP provides a range of valuable relationships services for families, children and individual adults.  The most obvious weaknesses of the Program at this stage are inadequate funding and limited coverage, fragmentation of FRSP services by agency and location, inadequate internal linkages among funded agencies and the IRBs, and inadequate external linkages with other relevant programs and services provided by the States and Territories, by other Commonwealth agencies, and by FaCS itself. Significant areas of unmet need that were identified during the review include:
• services for culturally and linguistically diverse families and communities
• services for Indigenous families and communities
• services in rural and regional areas
• funding for post-separation parenting education and support.

There was wide agreement that Children’s Contact Services and the Contact Orders Program, in particular, need to be considerably expanded.  Per capita funding is quite uneven across the States and Territories, with Queensland being the lowest-funded jurisdiction. 

Beyond such specific shortfalls, there was widespread agreement among those consulted that a substantial increase in the scale of the Program would be necessary to provide more adequate and equitable levels of access to services.  In many cases current demand is manageable only because of limited public awareness of the services that the FRSP offers.