‘Showcasing practice and shared learning with colleagues’ · PDF filerelevant and interesting for participants. ... adding extra duties or seemingly mundane ... including communication

The Better Care Better Service Forum 2011 was held 24 February. This e-booklet contains a précis of the presentations delivered by the out of home care sector and the Department for Child Protection.

Better Care, Better Services Forum 2011

‘Showcasing practice and shared

learning with colleagues’

A joint presentation by

Alta-1, DCP Bamburra House Residential Service, DCP Catherine

House Residential Service, Life Without Barriers, Parkerville,

Wanslea and the Department for Child Protection.

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Better Care, Better Services Forum 2011 ‘Showcasing practice and shared learning with colleagues’

Contents

Session 1: Engaging carers, staff and children in the self assessment............. 3

Session 2: What worked / didn’t work for the self assessment.......................... 5

Session 3: An evaluation of the self assessment process................................. 7

Session 4: How the self-assessment and external monitoring process improved

the quality of care to children ................................................................................ 9

Session 5: The monitoring experience from a residential care perspective .... 11

Session 6: The history and background of Better Care Better Services 2007 .. 13

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Session 1: Engaging carers, staff and children in the self assessment

Presented by Stephan Lund and Belinda Lord, Wanslea

Part of the challenge of completing the Better Care, Better Services self

assessment is ensuring the engagement of stakeholders and thereby the

accuracy, breadth and depth of the information conveyed. This presentation will

focus on the process of engagement and completion of the Better Care, Better

Services self assessment at Wanslea during 2010.

The key to beginning this process was planning to ensure the best outcome given

the constraints of high workloads, busy carers, children and young people. In

addition, we recognised the challenge of making the self assessment process

relevant and interesting for participants. The importance of including as many

stakeholders as possible was noted as crucial for a useful final product. We

recognise that this was a starting point for Wanslea and in the future we would

like to engage many more foster carers and children in care.

For staff in a busy work environment, adding extra duties or seemingly mundane

administrative tasks is not popular or effective. Similarly, foster carers have busy

family and working lives and don’t necessarily see the importance of assisting

with improving the standards of care as they relate to the foster care program as

a whole. With children and young people, finding the right incentive for them to

participate was fundamental to facilitating engagement.

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The presentation is in a digital story format, using narrative, photos and video

footage to illustrate the process of completing the self assessment with the input

of children, young people, foster carers, staff and management at Wanslea. It

highlights what worked and some of the challenges encountered in the process.

The presentation ends with some reflections and suggestions for improving the

self assessment process for the future and for the engagement of stakeholders.

For further information please contact Stefan Lund or Belinda Lord

(08) 9245 2441.

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Session 2: What worked / didn’t work for the self assessment

Presented by Karolina Talikowski, DCP Bamburra House Residential Group

Home

Who we are:

• Bamburra House – under Accommodation & Care Services

• Four bed home – currently five children

• Under 12 years of age

• Residential Care Officers – carers do rotating shifts

• Various ages, backgrounds, cultures and religions

• Various levels of education and experience of staff

• One unit manager and one psychologist

• Direct liaison with the Districts where case managers are located

The Self Assessment Process

• Discussions/interviews with four staff members

• Children completed their forms with staff assistance – various levels of

maturity and comprehension

• Staff were on shift at time of interview

• Took several days to complete – very lengthy process

What did we learn about the needs of the staff?

• Staff are told that Policy and Procedures are available but given that all

information is now online, staff do not receive a hard copy

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• After initial training staff are required to read and re-read the manuals, policy

and procedures – Residential Care Officers requested more frequent

reminders from management

• Staff are not usually given information on District work

• Manager and psychologist tend to have more contact with District

• Staff have little knowledge on procedures and will often seek out the

psychologist or manager for information and support

• Due to the familiar nature of the home the Charter of Right for Children in

Care is not displayed

• Residential Care Officers requested additional supervision & development

• Residential Care Officers requested additional feedback and information on

what is happening with each child

What did we learn about the Self-Assessment Process?

• Difficult to conduct during shifts (same staff member needed to be available

for a number of days)

• Very lengthy process

• Not all sections were relevant to residential care

• Children’s section not suited for this age group (under 12 yrs)

• Potential for biased results, as results were seen by manager and self-

assessment conducted by the second in charge

Where to from here?

• Continue to develop residential care plan meetings, inviting case managers to

these meetings and to stay afterwards to spend time with their child

• Increasing the expectation of managers visiting children on a monthly basis

• Continue professional development, supervision and Reaching Forward

• Training in all staff meetings conducted several times per year, and

Therapeutic Crisis Intervention training refreshers are conducted once a year.

• Welcome packages available to all children entering residential care, which

include information such as the Charter of Rights for Children in Care

For further information please contact Karolina Talikowski (08) 9440 3966.

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Session 3: An evaluation of the self assessment process

Presented by Jacqui Luff and Kylie Murphy, Life Without Barriers

During this presentation we will reflect on a number of aspects of the self

assessment process. Areas that will be discussed include:

Who we are and what we do

• Life Without Barriers is a significant provider of disability and out of home care

services across Australia. We will provide a brief description of the services

we offer and the values we aspire to.

Contrast of the DSC self assessment process vs DCP self assessment

• We will examine the impact of self assessments on the organisation and

contrast our experience of undertaking the DSC self assessment vs the DCP

experience.

Undertaking of surveys within the organisation

• We will explain how we conducted the surveys with respect to the three target

groups i.e. LWB staff, LWB carers and LWB clients.

• Identify challenges to carrying out the surveys and how these were overcome,

including communication issues and maintaining objectivity.

Report on each target group’s experience of the process

• Each group interviewed provided feedback of their experience.

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Benefits of undertaking the self assessment – what we have learnt

• We will reflect on how the self assessment has improved practices and

increased staff and carer awareness with respect to the Standards.

For further information please contact Jacqui Luff or Kylie Murphy

(08) 9432 6700.

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Session 4: How the self-assessment and external monitoring process improved the quality of care to children

Presented by Mervin Jayaseela, Alta-1

What we learned and how we have improved our Quality of Care:

1. Management Staff to oversee the process of Quality of Care

2. Quality of Care is now a part of our Agenda in our Monthly Managers’

Meeting.

i. Introducing Standards, documents, legislation for discussion,

information, understanding and ideas how the line managers can

process it.

ii. Gives ownership to line managers since they have been a part of

designing the procedure or recoding etc.

3. Process Documents

i. Policy & Procedures and staff handbooks did not cover sufficiently

the standards – focus on what was clearly not there in the Internal

& External evaluation.

ii. Timeline set for research, drafting and informing staff before we

kicked off the process.

4. Staff Awareness

i. Monthly team or house meetings –

a. To brief them of changes, new procedures, standards, etc.

b. To supervisor that this procedures and process were being

maintained.

c. To personalise the standards to the specific “young person”

in our care.

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5. Recording Procedures.

i. We recognised that we needed to improve or be more systematic in

how we were recording – documented evidence.

ii. Not just the day to day, weekly reports, incident reports but how we

were training, briefing, informing our staff of the standards and

showing proof that they were being followed.

Some of the difficulties we faced in the self-assessment:

1. Interpreting and application of the Standards.

i. How do they apply to Individual Intensive Placement Services?

ii. What was our responsibility (our staff, Team Leaders, carers) and what

was the Case Manager’s from DCP.

2. Working with DCP.

i. Case managers and their supervisors don’t seem to refer to the

standards.

ii. There were situations where DCP case managers were ignoring the

standards unless we insisted.

3. Staff Awareness.

i. Because of the turnover of staff and the short term contracts we have

with DCP, carers who have been informed and trained leave then we

have no continuity or job security.

ii. New staff members have to be trained, briefed and informed.

For further information please contact Mervin Jayaseela (08) 9403 8201.

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Session 5: The monitoring experience from a residential care perspective

Presented by Dave Williams, DCP Catherine House Residential Group

Home

Overview of Catherine House

• Communities covered over 26 not counting satellite communities that link into

to these. 157000sq km, over 15 language groups

• Numbers of children / sibling groups / Catherine house is the emergency

accommodation for the West Kimberley

• Difficulties in recruiting staff / number of casual staff

• Children presenting with serious health issues

• Age group is 16 months to 12.5 yrs in the past we have had babies as young

as four weeks old

• Out of home care services have recently been reviewed, with the result being

more group homes and the allocation of permanent positions

• Neglect is the main reason children are in Catherine House, with a high

number presenting with major health concerns, this all equal high number of

children with high needs

How staff perceived the monitoring visit

• A couple were nervous and asked me if they had to take part. I spoke with

staff about the role of standards monitoring and the role they played within the

Department

• Why do they need to talk to us? - the need to interview staff and to enable

staff to provide feedback; to ask personal views when and if deemed

necessary; and I told staff that I had provided their names to Standard

Monitoring Unit due to the fact that they were on shift. I only requested one of

my Senior Residential Care Officers come in for the interview

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• What do they want to know? - I had to tell staff that I did not know the exact

questions but it would all be related to the standards (Therapeutic Residential

Care standards) and would include question about the children we work with

and the way that we work

• Why do they need to speak to some children and not others - time constraints

/ not possible to; and age

Challenges

• Explaining the role of the monitors to staff as many are casuals, etc

• The Therapeutic Residential Care Review Implementation Plan had been

released that week

Response and actions from the visit/report,

• What I can do better in supporting staff - Ensure more formal supervision;

training sessions for new staff around BCBS and Therapeutic Residential

Care standards; BCBS is part of supervision ensuring it is something that is

discussed regularly

• What is working well - The working relationship between Catherine House and

the field; and the standard of care children are receiving

Benefits of the monitoring visit for the Catherine house

• Clarity and feedback

• Ensuring cultural links are maintained

• Individual Therapeutic Plans

• Having a independent look at what your doing

Conclusion

• Would welcome standards monitoring to visit anytime

• Clear and unbiased feedback, i.e. recommendations and also commendations

• BCBS gives us a framework to work more effectively and achieve positive

outcomes for the children in our care

For further information please contact David Williams (08) 9192 1317.

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Session 6: The history and background of Better Care Better Services 2007

Presented by Pauline Dixon, Wanslea and Basil Hanna, Parkerville Children

and Youth Care

In 2006 a group of representatives from across the Government and Non

Government sectors were invited to join a working party to review the Out of

Home Care Standards. The principles and standards for care for children which

applied at that time to both the Department for Child Protection (Department) and

non-government services were approved in 1997 and were attachments to the

service specifications for placement services. The former Out of Home,

Preventative and Alternative Care (OHPAC) Committee developed draft Industry

Standards for OHPAC services in WA in September 1997. The Department’s

Executive considered the draft standards in March 1998 and noted that the work

done by the OHPAC Sector Standards Working Party needed to be taken into

account when the principles and minimum standards for Out of Home Care

Placement Services were reviewed. The need to review the principles and

standards was identified as a priority project during the re-negotiation project.

The review is also listed as a project for 2002/03 in the Department for

Community Development Strategic Framework for Care for Children and Young

People.

The purpose of the working party was to develop standards and principles for

placement services that ensure the provision of quality services for children and

young people and reflect the Department’s principles of engagement,

inclusiveness, collaboration and capacity building. There was broad

representation from the sector and agreement that any outcomes would be

applied across the sector. The group assessed standards from other countries

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and sectors and worked to develop a process that would be applicable to foster

care and residential care. In 2007 Standards Monitoring joined the team and the

Out of Home Care Standards were joined up with some of the Departmental

Child Protection Standards. The final documents were sent out for consultation

across the sector.

Members of the working party agreed to become members of the Implementation

Group and were trained in Standards Monitoring as there had been agreement

across the sector that there was a preference for monitoring each other rather

than all being monitored by the Department. It had been a completely

collaborative process for all the years that we met together. Pauline and Basil

are the only members of the original group that stayed the distance. And so out of

this long process Better Care, Better Services was born.

For further information please contact Pauline Dixon (08) 9245 2441.