1. A New Role for Local Government in Social Change
GO GOLDFIELDS
A New Role for Local Government in Social Change

2. Introduction Where we are Who we are What we were faced with
What we are doing
What we have learnt so far…

3. Where we are

4. Vision: Our community aspiring, achieving and living a full life
Who we are
Go Goldfields Alliance:
Social reform in action
Alliance with governance through section 86 committee of the LG Act
Working together to find solutions where previous solutions haven’t worked
Includes all sectors
Vision: Our community aspiring, achieving and living a full life
Go Goldfield Approach
Frequently when people define that context that a project is operation within the information is then relegated to a couple of paragraphs in the introduction of the final report, the focus being on the statistics. Within Go Goldfields we endeavour to work within and on the context to achieve better outcomes within the community. For example running activities on connecting youth to school would have no impact if youth had no ‘future story,
We have two platforms for our work
Vision
5 Desired Outcomes

5. What we were faced with….2009
79th of 79 shires in Victoria
60% children starting school require SP
Highest CP reporting, re-reporting and out of home care in the region
High levels youth unemployment
Lowest levels post secondary qualifications in state
Despite significant resourcing in the shire, nothing was changing
The stats of the shire was the story of the shire

6. What we are doing Focused on Community Outcomes
Outcomes refined
Positive life experience, language, literacy
Parenting skills and confidence
Community confidence and system response to family violence
Youth and families education and training, employment outcomes
Mental and physical health outcomes
Structures
Form needs to follow function and although some of these structures will only become evident in the doing, the governance needs to be clear
Need to define governance in line with government decision making, as all funding had different lines of accountability needs to be with political government ie on local government, state or national level. If funded regionally of course have to do it this way but understand that it will be more of a challenge in the doing and the resourcing
Align decision making within the work with effective leadership and resourcing.
Planning
Document a high level plan for the place that you are working in . This will help you resource the work that you need to do as well as allow discussion with others who are working on similar things. Lend, share and beg borrow and steal.
Develop the strategies for the work that you do starting from the outcomes. It is really easy to jump to the best idea or to try to introduce a program that ahs worked somewhere else. If this has worked for your community do it but for ours years of such implementation had changed little/nothing
Engage strategists, service providers, individuals impacted by the issue in the development of a way forward
Evidence based, tertiary institutions
Critical enquiry to get to the critical issue. All for us lead back to language, literacy, behaviour, community connection, community protective factors.
Document in an easy to understand way
Where needed embed platforms
Ensure plans cover off on all aspects of the Ottawa charter and cover community, services and individuals

7. Values Align Principles and Practice, ‘forms’ will follow
Empowering parents, youth and families
Listening and acting on community knowledge
Child, youth centered, family friendly
Providing access and quality services in the most appropriate setting
Delivering services in a non-judgemental way
Fostering action and accountability against the desired outcomes
Utilising best available evidence
Building on longer-term sustainability
Prioritising prevention and early intervention

8. Service Focus: Holistic Approach
Shire wide strategies
Community cultural change
Services cultural change
Engagement of leadership
Engagement of community

9. Place Based: Go Goldfields Best Start Strong Families
A Suite of Integrated Strategies for Improving Outcomes for Children
Integrated Communication Development Approach
Communication, Literacy & Numeracy
Breastfeeding
Immediate post-natal BF
Services Transfer Information
Mothers' Group
Early Years Settings all have a C&L Focus
Mentoring / Role Modelling
Children
Safe & healthy
Developing well
Integrated Literacy Approach
Community
Strong
Supportive
Early Education
Service Providers skilled to work from Common Understanding / Approaches
Normalise Public BF
Schools & Services
Responsive
Effective
Families
Confident
Capable
Resilient
Social marketing / key messages
Implementation
Need documentation implementation plans
Effective support and supervision of staff
Think about keeping new positions initially within an organisation
Implement across community, services and individuals using Ottawa charter
Recruit for excellence
Evaluate fit of the work and modify as needed. An active reflective process.
Under pin work with shared principles/guidelines:
Empowering parents, youth and families
Listening and acting on community knowledge
Developing and delivering person centred services ‘as one’
Providing access and quality services in the most appropriate setting
Delivering services in a non-judgemental way
Fostering action and accountability against the desired outcomes
Utilising best available evidence
Building on longer-term sustainability
Prioritising prevention and early intervention
Embedding platforms across work eg with us Art and UP
Evaluation
Collective Impact
Real world evaluation
What to see impact across community of all work, want to look at effectiveness of strategies and review different intervention. Cant do all of it. Have to really get the critical issues you want to measure.
Talk/Partner to Tertiary Institutions
Deliver "One Family, One Plan"
Engage community including insular families of year olds in community activity and to services
Stronger families through Reinforcement of Social Norms
Embed community art throughout all children and family activities
Co-ordinate use of communities facilities and spaces
Better use Existing Networks
Strong & Safe Families
Strong Communities

10. What we have learnt so far…
Facilitate:
Plan, design solutions locally
Holistic: Outcome focus
Effective governance Strength based
Place-based/Collective impact
Client/recipient involvement/control
Evaluation Focus on outcomes
Readiness community
Resourced

11. What has not worked Things that Hinder: Funding and service Agreements
Organisational focus
Capacity to collaborate
Generalist vs Specialist roles
Increasing regionalisation of services
‘New thinking’ in the work makes it hard to communicate.
Government restructuring/upheaval

12. Where from here..
Developed evidence based, fully costed strategy for
Organisations increasing challenge to change how they do what they do
Greater engagement of Business community