9. What tools are available on this site for family support services? How can they be used?

Measuring outcomes in family support involves families, workers, services, peak organisations, universities and government.

The following tools may be useful to family support services. There are many other tools required for other players.

Family support services are diverse. There is no one set of tools that all family support services could use and adopt.

These tools have been developed on the basis that they will be used and modified by individual family support services to meet their needs. They have been developed on the following principles:

• The tool will be holistic
• The tool will be designed to monitor changes in individual clients and their circumstances - the point of comparison will be the client not a population standard
• The data from using the tool will also be able to show changes in groups of clients (eg clients participating in a new service model)
• The client should be involved in using the tools and reflecting on the information gathered.

The tools

The tools available on this site are in three documents:

Family workers: Tools 1 to 4
Family workers research: Tools 5 and 6
Family workers exploring topics: Tool 7

See below for details and downloads.

Family Workers: Tools 1 to 4

There are four tools that can be used in family support services in the service delivery process and modified as required:

Tool 1 Snapshot of Life - Client’s picture
This can be used early in service delivery, later in service delivery and on completion.

Tool 2 Snapshot of life - Worker’s picture
This can be used early in service delivery, later in service delivery and on completion.

Tool 3 Goals - Joint client and worker picture
This can be used jointly by the client and the worker during service delivery

Tool 4 Service facts and figures
This is data gathered about the client (eg age, gender, type of family) and services provided (eg amount and frequency of service).

These tools help paint a picture of the client's situation, the services provided and the changes taking place in the client and their situation over time.

They can be used with individual clients. The results can also be collated and analysed to review groups of clients, eg, all the clients in a family support service.

Download Family Workers: Tools 1 to 4 (310k)

Family workers research: Tools 5 and 6

There are two tools that are longer versions of the material in Tools 1 to 4. They are more likely to be used in research projects or in services that have a research focus:

Tool 5 Snapshot of life (Long Version)
This can be used early in service delivery, later in service delivery and on completion. The data is much more detailed than Tool 1.

Tool 6 Service facts and figures (Long Version)
This is data gathered about the client (eg age, gender, type of family) and services provided (eg amount and frequency of service). The data is more detailed than Tool 4.

Download Family worker research: Tools 5 and 6 (350k)

Family workers exploring topics: Tool 7

Tool 7 includes topic tools which can be used to explore specific topics in service delivery or research:

Tool 7

Topic 1 - Social capital
Topic 2 - Life's practicalities
Topic 3 - Life experiences and outlook
Topic 4 - Feelings about parenting
Topic 5 - Relationship with spouse
Topic 6 - Storybook reading
Topic 7 - Children
Topic 8 - Practical parenting
Topic 9 - Building strengths
Topic 10 - Significant life events
Topic 11 - Stress
Topic 12 - Participation in community organisations
Topic 13 - Information
Topic 14 - Beliefs about others
Topic 15 - Young person's experience (12 year old or older)
Topic 16 - Groups
Topic 17 - Family worker services

These tools could be used is a service wishes to explore a particular topic with a group of clients.

Download Family workers exploring topics: Tool 7 (310k)