The final stage of the operation implementation was initiating the exit strategy that had been built in to the planning of the initiative. The aim of the exit strategy was to enable successful initiatives arising from the deployment of Operation RESET to be adopted by local agencies and maintained over the long term. Because of the large number of Indigenous communities in Western Australia, and the costs involved with implementing the program, Operation RESET could only be maintained on a temporary basis. It was important that the good work of the specialist team be continued by locally run forms of the operation at the end of the eighteen-month program. In essence, the exit strategy aimed to have local service providers assume responsibility for this work.
Evaluation of Operation RESET
One of the significant strengths of this initiative was the planned evaluation process that had been built into the project from the outset. This strategy was published along with the rationale and implementation plan for the project (Mace & Powell, 2012). The planned evaluation involved three main aspects: 1) Interviews with stakeholders, 2) Construction of a scale to measure attitudes to child sexual abuse in remote Indigenous communities and 3) Comprehensive data collection of day-to-day activities of Operation RESET at the first site (Mid-West Gascoyne Region). The first two of these planned evaluations have been published, and will now be briefly discussed.
Qualitative Study
The first published evaluation of Operation RESET utilised a qualitative analysis methodology to examine stakeholders’ perceptions of the strategic model (Mace, Powell, & Benson, 2015). In-depth interviews were collected from
community members, victims’ families and professionals who provided services across the region, who had experience of Operation RESET. The analysis attempted to determine whether there was improved service delivery in relation to the detection, response and prevention of child sexual abuse, and improved relationships between Indigenous community members and government agencies. Because prior research in this field was limited and this initiative signaled a significantly new approach, the detailed and non-directive nature of a qualitative study was deemed to be appropriate for this first level of analysis. This initial review determined that there were four distinctive features that could be attributed to the success of the reform. These
features included 1) a proactive outreach by the team in terms of specialized services, 2) capacity building with a focus on improved skills, capabilities, understanding and abilities of both professionals and communities, 3) an holistic focus of integrated service provision and 4) genuine engagement based on relationships that facilitated trust. The review concluded that Operation RESET had been a major step forward in improving relationships between Indigenous community members and human services agencies, and had considerably assisted in maximizing justice outcomes and children’s wellbeing.
Scale to measure attitudes to child sexual abuse in remote Indigenous communities.
The second published evaluation of the initiative was a validation study of a scale that was designed to measure attitudes to child sexual abuse in remote
Australian Indigenous Communities (Bailey, Mace, & Powell, 2015). This scale was developed as part of the planned evaluation of Operation RESET, in order to
measure attitudes, and the effects of the initiative in the regions. Principle components analysis revealed an intuitive four-factor structure from an abridged version of the scale: entrenched issues, personal understanding and knowledge, communication between community and government, and community action (N=120, Ten-items in abridged scale.)
In order to investigate the integrity of the scale, comparisons between groups were made for service providers verses community members, and Indigenous versus non-Indigenous persons. Service providers living outside the community accounted for 58%, community members living within the community accounted for 9%, and
service providers who were also community members accounted for 33% of the sample. Eighteen percent of participants identified as Indigenous. Participants who were both service providers and community members felt that entrenched issues (fear of talking about child sexual abuse, shame, and time for cases to reach court) were a greater problem than did service providers who did not live in the community. Community members were found to be significantly more likely to believe that reports of child sexual abuse were not taken seriously by police and welfare than service providers. Indigenous participants were more likely to believe that
communication was poor between community and government, and that reports of child sexual abuse were not taken seriously by police and welfare. Unfortunately, it was not possible to determine the effect of Operation RESET on outcomes as only a small amount of data had been collected prior to the operation, and what data was collected was not matched pre and post.
The third stage of the evaluation process was intended to be a study based on the information collected by the team leader of the first RESET site. This
information, however, was not sufficient to effectively conduct a quantitative evaluation of the initiative. A new strategy to measure quantitative outcomes was devised, and is presented here as Study 4 of this thesis.
Summary
The published evaluations of Operation RESET suggested that the initiative offered a new type of service delivery that was quite different from what had been offered previously to address child sexual abuse in Australia. Central features of this initiative were the establishment of genuine collaboration between the operation
team, community members and local stakeholders, proactive delivery of services, capacity building, and integrated service delivery (whole of government approach). The initiative aimed to provide a process whereby stakeholders could come together to determine strengths and issues, work out solutions, and develop at holistic plan for their region or community. Reports of sexual abuse would be investigated quickly and comprehensively by police and child protection officers, and Indigenous communities would work in collaboration with service providers in preventing and reporting the sexual abuse of children in their communities.
CHAPTER SEVEN: QUANTITATIVE EVALUATION OF OPERATION