Sowing the seeds of innovation:

Uncovering strategies that may help facilitate the spread of promising approaches in child and family

work

Helen McLaren, Christine Gibson, Fiona Arney, Dorothy Scott, Louise Brown

Acknowledgements

• Australian Centre for Child Protection

• UnitingCare Burnside

• University of Bath• Australian Research

Council

The Australian Centre for Child Protection

Through research, professional education and advocacy we aim to enhance life opportunities for children in Australia who are risk of abuse or neglect

We are an initiative of the Commonwealth Government (DIISR) and the University of South Australia

Focus

• Introduction

• Examining the spread of promising programs

• Emerging findings

• Implications

“Why do models of excellent schools, effective job training and wonderful early childhood programs remain only models? Why do interventions that actually change the odds for their high-risk participants succeed briefly… and fail the moment we try to sustain them… or expand them?”

(Schorr 1997, p.xiv)

Program of research

• Literature review by Salveron et al, Family Matters, Issue 73, 2006

• Brown, 2003 & 2007 – Family group conferencing in the UK

• Harris, 2007 & 2008 – Family group conferencing in Australia

• ARC Linkage grant

Broad Objective• Defining the conditions under which the

dissemination and diffusion of effective innovations (spread of programs) in child and family services are most likely to succeed

• To enable future promising programs a

better chance of being widely adopted (or

adapted).

Australian child and family welfare

• Mixed model• Constantly evolving• Insufficient use of

promising or effective interventions

• Potential for wasted investment and opportunities

Diffusion of Innovation theory

“Diffusion is the process in which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among members of a social system”

(Everett Rogers, 2003)

What We Already Know

• Innovations diffuse differently, through different channels and at different rates

• Some succeed and some fail to diffuse• Some show a linear process of diffusion

while others are dynamic, and often, haphazard

• Some are adopted and some are adapted• Sometimes needs champions

Salveron, Arney & Scott paper “Sowing the seeds of innovation: ideas for child and family services”

Concept as a typical linear process:

• Development• Communication• Adoption• Implementation• Replication/ Adaptation• Sustained/ Embedded

PersuasionKnowledge

Diffusion of Innovation Model

(adapted from Everett Rogers, 2003)

Antecedents Processes Consequences

Decision Confirmation

Communication Sources

(channels)

Adoption

Rejection

Time

Linear process implicitly assumes: But we see this:

Ideas One invention, operationalised Reinvention, proliferation, reimplementation, discarding and termination

People An entrepreneur with a fixed set of full-time people over time

Many entrepreneurs, distracted, fluidly engaging and disengaging over time in a variety of organisational roles

Transactions Fixed network of people/ firms working out the details of an idea

Expanding and contracting network of partisan stakeholders diverging and converging on ideas

Context Environment provides opportunities and constraints on innovation process

Innovation process constrained by and creates multiple enacted environments

Outcomes Final result orientation; a stable new order comes into being

Final result may be indeterminate; multiple in-process assessments and spin-offs; integration of new orders with old

Process Simple, cumulative sequence of stages or phases

From simple to multiple progressions of divergent, parallel and convergent paths, some of which are related and cumulative, others not

Source: Van de Ven et al (2000) Research on the Management of Innovation (p.11)

Background to the study

• Therefore, much innovation is dynamic and its diffusion encounters many obstacles as well as facilitators… we want to know what these are in child and family services– What shapes them?– How the obstacles may be overcome?– How the facilitators may be capitalised upon?

Research Design

• Micro analysis– UnitingCare

Burnside– Seven promising

strategies– Case studies of

internal evolution and spread

Why Burnside?

Seven broadly-ranging innovative programs

– Intensive family-based service

– NEWPIN– Home Visiting– Family Group

Conferencing– Men in Families– Moving Forward– The Family Learning

Centre

Research Design

• Macro analysis– Surveying– 842 sites– 248 surveys

returned– 85% agreed to re-

contact

Research Design

• Macro analysis– Interviewing– 92 interviews

• Analysis against Salveron et al (2006) and Rogers (2003) Conceptual Models

Emerging Findings

• Communication– Imported versus domestic – Evidence-based practice– Importance of champions (current and former

staff, experts)– Media (e.g., NEWPIN) – impact on a wide

range of people (e.g., clients, board members)– Conferences– Research assisting with dissemination– Identifying effective elements

• Our organisation is continually looking to support new program models from overseas which have been going for a few years and which have already built an evidence base and a reputation, self fund them for the first 5 years and build our own evidence in our own region, then seek external funding to sustain the programs. From our experience government funders are more likely to fund imported programs and are more likely to take their “goodness” on face value because they are from the UK or the USA. We know we are less likely to win funding for home grown programs

(Interviewee who had heard about NEWPIN)

• Adoption and implementation– Current programs– Effectiveness/promise– Cost/benefit– Fit with organisational and individual mandate

and values (rhetoric and reality)– Availability of resources, training and support– Organisational culture– Identified need – top down/bottom up

• Community• Organisation/practitioners• Funding bodies

I would have heard about similar strategies at a range of disability conferences where we hear what other agencies are doing. They [funder] often make recommendations back to us saying “you should be doing this and that.” I believe that in the end it [the idea] came from them. Often in response I say, “Well you give us the money to do it.” We got an increase in funding to integrate the intensive support service

(Interviewee with a similar innovation to Intensive Family Based Service)

• Replication or Adaptation?– Programs versus practices– Licensing/Legislation– Local needs– Values (e.g., family time in FGC)– Resources

• Sustainability– Evidence building– Funding– Political climate– Ongoing support

Implications• Communicate, disseminate and

substantiate (relationships)• Produce an evidence base –

publish/present or perish• Identify the costs and benefits of your

program/practice, and the key elements• Identify champions within and outside the

organisation• Ability of programs to be adapted• Timing

Law and policy reform in Victoria established a whole of system approach to child wellbeing and child protection underpinned by research. Family Group Conferencing accepted as good practice across the state.

(Interviewee with a similar innovation to Family Group Conferencing)

Conceptual Challenges

• Defining what is innovative

• Practice vs programs• Promise

– Evidence– Effectiveness– Efficiency

Methodological Challenges

• Difficulty with tracking and identifying change

• Multiple delivery sites• Representative

organisational views• Multiple participants

for some organisations

• Knowledge competition

Field Specific Issues

• ‘Do’ vs ‘Diffuse’• Individual desire or

interest• Initiatives are highly

localised• Imposition of service

specifications

Australian Centre for Child Protection http://www.unisa.edu.au/childprotection

UnitingCare Burnside http://www.burnside.org.au