Aboriginal-led Commissioning
Commissioning for better Aboriginal child and family outcomes
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island children, young people and their families continue to be over-represented across the child and family services continuum of care.
As of 2023, 43.7% of children in out-of-home care are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, despite making up just 6% of children in NSW. This is of particular concern because the situation persists despite multiple investments in system review and reform.
The current system:
- fails to target investment
- focuses on outputs rather than child and family outcomes
- is inflexible and fails to deliver self-determination to Aboriginal communities in addressing child and family issues.
In responding to the evidence and data, AbSec is leading an innovative approach to designing and delivering tailored child and family-centred, holistic supports together. This approach aims at delivering what’s needed as a package of supports across the continuum, not just at crisis, rather than through a programmatic design creating inflexible practice; and to achieve better outcomes for Aboriginal children, families and communities in the statutory child protection system over time.
What is commissioning?
Commissioning is the process of designing, resourcing and delivering funding for community needs, with the goal of achieving outcomes in a service or program area. It builds on traditional funding and procurement processes by looking at all the phases in a more holistic way – from the design phase through to contract management. NSW government agencies have committed to embedding the commissioning approach within their funding cycles, but it is still a fairly new way of working across these systems.
Commissioning is typically done in a top-down manner, with decisions made by the government. This can continue a cycle of disproportionate and inadequate funding to Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) and a lack of resources to support our children, young people and families.
What is Aboriginal-led commissioning?
Aboriginal-led commissioning, can be also referred to as community-led commissioning, and often utilises a place-based approach to funding investment. Aboriginal-led commissioning ensures that families and communities are self-empowered to determine the investment into programs and services, based on their own needs and desired outcomes.
In 2020 the AbSec Commissioning Framework was released for trialing by communities and stakeholders across NSW. The core focus and elements of AbSec’s Commissioning Framework are:
- Aboriginal children and families.
- Cultural safety.
- Co-design.
The core elements are surrounded by a three-phase model: design planning, implementation and evaluation.
The framework is intended to be flexible so it can adapt to new ideas and changing circumstances. Each trial project will be evaluated to help shape its future direction.
What are the benefits of Aboriginal-led commissioning?
A collaborative approach to service provision will give Aboriginal people the chance to drive Aboriginal solutions and investment. It allows for localised community-driven programs that address the needs of children and families. Partnerships are a crucial element of the process, to allow all stakeholders to contribute to desired outcomes and develop proposed solutions. Aboriginal children and families, as well as the organisations that represent them, are positioned to drive change based on the needs and strengths of their communities.
Commissioning in action!
Project 1: The Aboriginal Guardianship Support Model (AGSM)
The Aboriginal Guardianship Support Model (AGSM) is the first project to trial the concept of Aboriginal-led Commissioning through the AbSec Commissioning Framework. This project aims to address issues arising from the introduction of guardianship orders. In 2014, the NSW Government introduced reforms to the child protection system to promote permanency orders, including a new form of orders known as ‘guardianship’.
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Guardianship enabled permanent legal separation of children from their parents, and sometimes from all family members and their communities. As part of the enactment of these reforms, a cohort of over 2000 children in kinship care were automatically transferred to guardianship and all payments to support them ceased. This disproportionately affected Aboriginal children and their kinship carers/guardians.
AbSec successfully advocated for payments to be reinstated in 2016, but many guardianship arrangements still struggled to meet the immediate and long-term needs of the children and young people affected. Following this DCJ noted a trend that saw Aboriginal children and young people in guardianship being re-reported as at Risk of Significant Harm (ROSH) and sought to address this issue in consultation with AbSec. This resulted in a funding grant for AbSec to work with its members, communities and stakeholders to develop and trial a model of support for Aboriginal children and young people in guardianship which became known the Aboriginal Guardianship Support Model (AGSM).
The project is being trialed by ACCOs in the Hunter and Southwest Sydney, who started delivering services to these families in 2022, to ensure that every Aboriginal child and young person under guardianship orders in these districts can thrive. The project is in its evaluation phase and has been extended to December 2024 to continue funding families engaged through AGSM. AbSec is confident the evaluation will demonstrate the need for continued and expanded support services to reach all children and young people in guardianship across NSW and will also showcase many of the benefits of Aboriginal-Led Commissioning.
Project 2: Aboriginal-led Commissioning
The Aboriginal-led Commissioning project is the second project to trial the AbSec Commissioning Framework. It aims to self-empower communities with the ability to make their own decisions about service design, priorities and funding across the Aboriginal Child and Family Sector. The program has evolved significantly as a result of lessons learned, which is the core reason for the project’s flexibility.
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With community expertise, leadership, and knowledge, the project moves to create opportunities for innovative solutions to the unique challenges faced by Aboriginal communities across NSW. Building on the success and lessons of the first trial, this project seeks to strengthen partnerships across state and local levels to support the initiative. It is working towards greater self-empowerment of our families and communities.
The project is in its establishment phase and its implementation will be revised to offer greater community leadership and self-determination across the commissioning process. The implementation will occur, in partnership with community, at trial sites in 2025.