La historia de don Yesid Martínez: Yo me adueñe de este pedazo, yo estoy

There was initial consultation with the local welfare organizations during the planning and development stages of CFK. A parent support program that involved the use of volunteers to support local families had always been envisaged for CFK. However, the relationship between CFK and other welfare organizations in the community was quite different to those discussed above, in that it tended to be an information-sharing relationship rather than a collaborative venture to implement a program component. There were a number of reasons for this.

The family support/home visiting program implemented by CFK was one of a number of programs in the area with a focus on supporting parents and/or families. However each program seemed to support families at different levels of need. Further, the programs each had their base location in different areas of the community. As the Shire of Murrindindi was geographically a physically large space, and many of the programs had a mandate to cover this area as well as other areas, many families were not supported due to lack of resources and time. CFK’s family support and home visiting programs, met the needs of many families who might otherwise have been neglected.

“In many ways we’re it (the only available service), that’s one of the issues that the community’s having to work through” Daniel (February, 2003)

“We are aware of the lack of services in the area and that was one of the reasons we set up (here) … but perhaps we weren’t as aware of the degree of need in the community, and how we (would) service that need …what we’ve failed to do is to have an understanding of the impact of all the other things, poor housing and no transport etc were recognized, but I don’t think we took it into consideration enough the impact that that has on families. What happens as a result is that we are involved with a family because of an issue with one of the children, but all these other things come into the picture, so we are asked for emergency relief, we are asked for transport. So it gets really murky around is this really a role for CFK or is it really outside our

guidelines, if we don’t do it we run the risk of not addressing the needs of the whole person and if we do it

on other people in the area and the other thing is we don’t really have the resources.” Deidre (February, 2003) “each of these different agencies … they’re all flat chat … to keep it coordinated … I just don’t see that there’s the, I guess there’s the desire to do it, but whether there’s the actual ability to do it” Principal of Alexandra Secondary College (August, 2003)

The manager of GVFC, an organization that provided assistance to families in the area, described the benefits of having the CFK’s parenting support and home visiting programs in the Shire.

“we’ve been able to close out a little bit earlier with some of our families knowing that there is still those community linkages happening, so for us it’s been like another arm, you know the more intensive work is done and sometimes we’d stay in for a few more weeks just to support mum while she gets that little bit stronger and connects in a bit more” GVFC

The reactive nature of the parent support/home visiting program

contributed to a great deal of the tension between Daniel and Meredith. Daniel felt that this program did not comply with community development principles and was time and resource intensive. He felt that it was the responsibility of the other services in the area to support the families that CFK was assisting.

Meredith was passionate about the program component that she coordinated and saw it as vital to the community, as it met the immediate needs of families in the area, and in this way helped in building community.

The issue of the home-visiting program being too reactive and not in line with the CFK’s proactive direction was often raised in evaluation meetings, emails and phone calls. In the program’s final year of funding Daniel’s anxieties about the sustainability of individual programs began to soar, once funding was withdrawn from CFK. The program that seemed most difficult to sustain was the home visiting program and this caused Daniel much angst.

Tensions began to increase in the CFK office. In my capacity as evaluator I had phone calls from both Daniel and Meredith, two days apart. Meredith wanted my support for the continuation of the home visiting program and Daniel wanted me to bring up the issue of the relationship between the cost and the benefit of

the home visiting program. The evaluation team decided that an appropriate topic for the next evaluation reflection meeting would be the home visiting program.

During this meeting the strengths, potential weaknesses and questions about the sustainability of the home visiting program were discussed. There were a number of strengths and weaknesses with the program. The first issue was a financial one. The cost of the program was very high, and it benefited only a few. In view of this, the program’s sustainability was questionable as it was going to be difficult to raise the necessary funds to run the program. The second dilemma was in some ways related to the first, in that there were a number of other service providers who were funded by the Government to provide services to meet this need in the community.

“in some ways we have to look at it that way (cost benefit analysis) because we’ve got to say if we’re going to look at sustainability where are we going to get the money from and how do we justify it when other areas are being funded … how do we set a niche separate from the other services” Daniel (May, 2003)

The dilemma for both Meredith and the agencies funded to service the community was that the physical size of the area was so large it was virtually impossible for these agencies to meet the needs within the community. The benefit of CFK was that it was available to families that were unable to access other services that were actually funded to provide a service in the area. The location of the shop front addressed the issue of the lack of transportation in the area. However, there was also concern that the shop front might have been creating a dependency in the community that could not be fulfilled if CFK did not receive further funding.

Potential solutions to this problem were also discussed. One option was for the funded service providers to contribute to the cost and the maintenance of the shop front and use the CFK premises to assist with this service delivery in the area. Two problems with this solution were immediately obvious. The first was the distances needed to be covered by agency who were based in different communities. The other problem was that each of the agencies offered a slightly different approach to the provision of these services. There were at least four

time; number of visits; intensity of support; and levels of volunteer training. To overcome these problems there were further issues that needed to be addressed. Like all agencies these agencies had to produce budgets for each financial year. It seemed logical to discuss these issues and possibilities with these agencies before they put their budgets in for the next financial year (only two months away) enabling them to include requirements in the budget. It was suggested that a forum be held with these groups to discuss these issues. However Deidre was very reluctant to initiate discussions with any of these agencies before BSV and CFK knew what position they would be in regarding future funding. She was concerned that the agencies would feel that CFK had created a dependency in the community that they were not going to satisfy. A further problem at this stage (May, 2003) was that even if CFK received further funding they could not accommodate any other agencies in their office as the space was already over-utilized.

“I’ve got a question mark there, I agree we’ve got to do this, I think we just need to be a bit careful, there is another scenario that we haven’t talked about, and I don’t know how likely this is, but if we do get funding, and as much as we’d like to know now, we’re not going to get that answer … there’s a hesitancy I suppose that I’ve got of not putting it in black and white, we’re certainly not going to tell the community that we’re likely to have the money, because they need to think that we’re moving out, and we need to be working as if we’re moving out, but I also don’t want to set up a situation where we’ve told these other agencies, you work out how you’re going to step in to fill our shoes, and then have to turn around and say oh well in fact we’ve got money so we’re staying here” Deidre (May, 2003)

Eventually an extraordinary meeting was held in September of that year and services agreed to meet on a regular basis to monitor the needs of the area. Many of the organizations also expressed an interest in the use of the CFK premises. There was an initial commitment from both GVFC and the Shire of Murrindindi to contribute to the costs related to the premises, however this was later rescinded.

There are a number of possibilities for the lack of development of a collaborative partnership between CFK and other welfare agencies. One

program component as a worthwhile investment for CFK, and his belief that the responsibility to meet this need in the community was that of the other agencies in the area rather than CFK. Another possibility might be that Meredith’s passion for her program and Deidre’s desire for CFK to continue receiving funding for program implementation made it difficult for them to allow agencies, who might later compete for funding, the opportunity to be to involved in the program. It is highly likely that CFK’s attitudes were unintentionally communicated to the agencies in the area. Agencies may have feared that they would not be supported by CFK.

7.3 Summary

The subsystems within CFK were composed of individual or small groups of staff members. The hierarchical organization of CFK meant that Daniel was involved in each subsystem, either through supervision or through membership of the small group. Daniel’s powers of decision making and allocation of resources were sanctioned by BSV. In many ways this stifled the other staff members as Daniel tended to be autocratic in his decision making. Nevertheless, some staff members developed their own methods for overcoming this problem. A cohesive group, which offered support to other members, was formed by those lacking in power. There were vast differences in the strengths, knowledge, and personal qualities of individuals, and the implementation of CFK program components benefited from this. Conversely, the many tensions and conflicts that existed throughout this case study had the effect of distracting individuals from the task at hand, though this abated somewhat towards the end of the funded period.

The implementation of CFK required interactions between CFK

subsystems and existing community subsystems. This proceeded as a function of the implementation of program components, with varying success. The

partnerships that CFK developed with the local primary schools and pre-school services remained strong. This is likely to be because CFK responded to their initial requests for assistance with early literacy. The relationships with

little more than information sharing between CFK and local welfare agencies which was likely a result of physical distance and some reluctance on the part of CFK to partner with other agencies in the service provision for families.

CHAPTER 8

A COMBINED SYSTEMS AND ECOLOGICAL APPROACH