· Web viewrecognise that the current service and support system which families are dealing with...

From ThinkPlace Pty Ltd ACN 116 993 170 | Trading as ThinkPlace Trust ABN 34 280 130 162Mezzanine 55 Wentworth Avenue Kingston | PO Box 5249 Kingston ACT 2604 p +61 2 6282 8852 f +61 2 6282 8832 www.thinkplace.com.au

Job Number C12023


Organisation ACT Government – Community Services Directorate



Research Protocol‘Listening to families’

Table of ContentsTable of Contents............................................................................................................................................. 2

Section 1: Intent and Co-design research design............................................................................................3

Purpose of Protocol....................................................................................................................................... 3

Intent of Co-Design Research....................................................................................................................... 3

Section 2: How to conduct research................................................................................................................6

Who are we interested in?............................................................................................................................. 6

A networked approach................................................................................................................................... 7

Research teams............................................................................................................................................ 9

Reflection and skill building......................................................................................................................... 11

Guiding principles........................................................................................................................................ 12

What will we gather in the field?.................................................................................................................. 12

Recording the interview............................................................................................................................... 13

Interviewer Safety & Comfort....................................................................................................................... 13

Ethical issues.............................................................................................................................................. 13

Section 3: Interview Process..........................................................................................................................15

Introduction – First 5 mins........................................................................................................................... 15

General demographics - 15 mins................................................................................................................16

QUESTIONS............................................................................................................................................... 17

Activities after interview............................................................................................................................... 19

Guiding framework for research and analysis.............................................................................................20

Section 4: Post-Field....................................................................................................................................... 21

7

Section 1: Intent and Co-design research designPurpose of ProtocolThe purpose of this document is to:

ensure there is a clear understanding of the project amongst team members

provide clear guidance about the research method including

o Why we are doing this research?

o Which research questions we want to answer?

o What kind of information we need to answer these questions?

o Where we can find the information?

o What are the contact persons who are responsible for each stage in the co-design research?

Intent of Co-Design Research ContextThe ACT Government recognises a group of individuals and families in the ACT experiencing poor outcomes against a range of indicators, which in turn can trigger or maintain cycles of disadvantage. The project focuses on improving responses for individuals and families that cannot, or choose not to, access the support they require to meet their full range of needs and to mitigate against any adverse outcomes that may result, including:

Poor outcomes for one or more individuals, including children, compared with other community members at a local and/or population level

Reduced personal well-being and social connectedness

Reduced economic participation leading to a loss of economic activity

Risk taking and anti-social behaviours which impact negatively on themselves or other citizens

Prolonged involvement with services without achieving progress resulting in inefficient and ineffective use of resources

Migration to higher cost services and interventions

8

There is a broad agreement that the public service system is failing to address the problems and needs experienced by vulnerable families. Therefore, there is a need for a better understanding of the experiences of vulnerable families in the complex service system that they are interacting with.

Drivers for changeWe are currently dealing with a service system that grew in a largely reactive manner without considering the user experience. This results in increased service complexity and duplication. As a consequences, families with multiple (breadth) and/or intensive (depth) support needs are experiencing barriers in accessing the support they need and want. This results in at least the following drivers for change:

Political awareness and recognition that a group of individuals/families are experiencing complexity in receiving the support they need and want, resulting in poor service outcomes and ineffective use of public resources

The desire to work as ‘one government’ (Hawke Report) – better collaboration between governmental organisations, community-based work and citizens to create a cohesive service system for citizens.

Reversing service resistance – the system becomes an additional risk factor for the families and a barrier (rather than driver of) to change

Reversing the turf war – taking shared responsibility for creating better outcomes for vulnerable families

Introducing a co-design approach – great interest in co-design approaches, concepts and tools to improve outcomes for citizens and the effectiveness for government service delivery

Goals of the research engagementTo deliver on our intent, we need to understand how vulnerable families currently experience and engage with the service system as well as explore future collaborative approaches for developing and co-producing services that creates better outcomes for vulnerable families in ACT.

The research aims to give illustrative descriptions of the journey of families in the service system with a specific focus on their experiences in significant situations and critical points of interaction. This will illuminate the problems and challenges that prevent desired outcomes. It will reflect a ‘holistic’ view on their service journey and the functioning of the service system as well as in-depth perspectives on its implications for the citizens.

The research will give a better understanding of:

- The needs as well as the assets and desires of vulnerable families

- The experiences of vulnerable families seen from their perspective as well as their journeys through the service system

- The interconnections in the service system and the potential effectiveness of a more collaborative approach

- How the current service delivery does not fit into the citizens’ life and their needs

9

Desired outcomes for research- Outcome 1: The research will give (new) insights into how to engage and retain people in

meaningful, person-centred service environments.

- Outcome 2: The research will inform the basis of outcomes-focused decision making by showing the potential of working as ‘one system’, regardless of provider and funding source.

- Outcome 3: The research will reframe current service delivery by introducing a co-design approach in the ACT government and show the potential of co-designing and co-producing services with communities and citizens.

Output Six citizen/family service journey maps that will show key experiences, significant situations and

critical points of interaction. This will highlight problems experienced by vulnerable families involved in dealing with the service system.

The Citizen Journey Diagnostic Tool will be applied to the maps to draw out principles, insights and ideas for new opportunities that the ACT government can pursue in creating better outcomes for vulnerable families (i.e. Personas, critical touch or transition points, problem statements, etc.). These principles, insights, ideas and their application will be presented in the final report.

Design considerations

What is our understanding of a vulnerable family and what implications does it have for this project and beyond?

What work has been done so far in integrating services? How do we build on it in a productive way?

How do we create a cohesive care for citizens and manage the interdependency of needs within highly specialized and separate fields of expertise?

How do we create collective accountability in order to meet needs of the families in an integrated way and address their needs as a whole family?

How can we initiate process for cultural and sustainable change within the organisation that can support a new approach to dealing with vulnerable families in ACT?

What will be our approach to prototyping with users in terms of tools and techniques chosen.

How will we ensure the research and service design demonstrates visible benefit to the client.

10

Section 2: How to conduct researchWho are we interested in? It is very difficult to define and quantify what characterizes vulnerable families. Given the focus on person-centred outcomes provided by ‘one system’, we need to look beyond the formal programme and policy areas in order to understand the experience and service journey of vulnerable families.

This point is reinforced by the fact that the number of vulnerable families varies according to who you ask. ‘Vulnerable families’ are usually identified through certain family level barriers. These barriers include:

Low or limited incomes / debt; sole or young parenthood; culturally or linguistically diverse; disability; unstable housing or homelessness; domestic violence; drug or alcohol abuse; physical or mental health issues; lack of social support; lack of private transport; low literacy; unemployment; large family size; lack of social stability; inability to live desired lifestyle; day-to-day stress

The service need matrix is a helpful tool to classify citizens and families by the intensity and number of services they require. Given the intention of the project, we are particularly interested in families and citizens that are located primarily in the ‘Intensive’ service need area (top right) and secondly in the ‘Assisted’ (top left) and ‘Managed’ service need area (bottom right).

11Figure 1: Service Need Matrix

In order to have a reasonable mix of families and to ensure that we apply useful criteria for engaging with the families, we have developed a table of family criteria that can be used as a framework for selecting and representing the families. The table is divided into three parts – Household type, family characteristics and service relationship (and contains to examples of families within our scope).

Table 1 – Family criteria

Family criteriaFamily

AFamily

BFamily

CHousehold typeHousehold with children? Yes Yes …Household type – single, couple, multi-generation Single Couple …

Family characteristicsAustralian citizen / resident? Yes No …Cultural background? –indigenous, western, other Western Other …

Health issues in the household –both, mental, physical, none Mental Physical …

Disability in the household –both, mental, physical, none None None …

Income –none, low, medium, high None Low …

Currently employed? No No …

Homeless / experiencing unstable housing? Yes Yes …Household members involved in justice system? Yes No …

Socially connected? –disconnected, somewhat connected, well connected

Disconnected Somewhat connected …

Access to personal transport (i.e. car)? No Yes …

Service relationship

Engaged by which service provider? – both, only government, only community service, none

Both Only community service …

Crisis level – low, medium, high high Medium …Statutory involvement? Yes Yes …

12

A networked approachAs part of the research, we are engaging with particular vulnerable families. For this reason, the selection and involvement of these families has to be carried out in close collaboration with service providers and frontline staff working. These are people who work with the families in practice and we see their in-depth understanding of the situations and experiences of vulnerable families as a value in itself that has to be utilized.

The project will adopt the co-design approach involving engagement with existing service users and learning networks including government and community practitioners. In this way, the family service journeys will be supplemented by service provider/frontline staff perspectives to clarify or further describe their experience, context and circumstance. This is an approach that relies on the voluntary participation of all people involved and uses the ‘natural connections’ in the system, building on people’s existing engagement and desire to be involved.

Concretely, we are going to develop eight family service journey maps from which we are going to gather insights and ideas. These journey maps will be developed from approximately three interviews per map with people within and around the family (two main interviews with family representatives and frontline staff and one ‘follow up’ interview for clarification, reflection and ideation). This will be a total of 24 interviews – some of which will be formal and structured; others will be semi-structured (see Figure 2).

13Figure

Engaging families

The primary approach for engaging the families will be through the community organisations and their case workers:

- Step 1: Dialogue or informal interview with frontline worker / community organisation / case worker

- Step 2: Establishing contact and meeting the family + interview sessions with family

- Step 3: Reflection-interview with community organisations or frontline workers from concrete experience with family (either as research or as fieldshop activity)

- Step 4: Revisiting family with follow up questions (either as research or as fieldshop activity)

Steps 3 and 4 are dependent on the willingness and ability of the family to participate further.

Other possible fieldwork activities

- Observation with frontline workers

- Observation in the homes of families or alongside them in a regular day of activity

Research teams

ThinkPlace is responsible for scheduling the main activities in the research phase, but relies on the collaboration and resources of the ACT government and community organisations for carrying out the research. The research will be conducted in teams with people from ACT government, the community organisations and ThinkPlace. This process will be organised and monitored as possibilities for engaging the families emerge (see Table 2).

14

Table 2 – research and interview process (example)

15

Reflection and skill buildingA part of the intent for this project was to use it as a process for learning about and reflection on the knowledge, methodology and tools involved in a co-design approach. For this reason, weekly reflection sessions will put the research and co-design process into focus by looking at the practical experiences and challenges as well as their implication for methodology and process design. These sessions will also provide some skill building on relevant methodology, techniques and approaches as the project runs its course (see Table 3).

Table 3 – Reflection sessions

Reflection Session

Date Time and Location Reflection Focus: Skill Building Topic:

1 11th May

10-12.00noon

ThinkPlace 55 Wentworth Ave, Kingston

Reflection – ‘Early observations’

Applying research protocol initial week of fieldwork

Interviewing techniques I

2 18th May

10-12.00noon


Reflection – ‘Emerging knowledge from the field’

Understanding how to apply co-design research methods

Interviewing techniques II

3 25th May

10-12.00noon


Reflection – ‘Telling the narrative’

Analysis and synthesis – Service journeys

Mapping service journey– visual presentation

4 1st June 10-12.00noon


Reflection – ‘Insights generation’

Developing insights using diagnostic

insight generation with diagnostic framework

5 8th June 10-12.00noon


Reflection – ‘Co-designing possibilities for service improvement’

Understanding codesign with families, government and service delivery organisations (e.g. frontline staff)

‘Fieldshop’ technique – cultural probes

6 15th June

10-12.00noon

ThinkPlace 55

Reflection – ‘Turning possibilities to practical

Designing a service blueprint

16

Wentworth Ave, Kingston

application’

Developing service integration/improvement

7 22th June

10-12.00noon


Reflection – ‘Sustaining cultural changes’

Embracing co-design as a way of going forward

Competencies and skills to influence and lead

8 29th June

10-12.00noon


Reflection – ‘Backcast – where did we start? How did we progress? And when did we end up?’

‘Futurecast’ - What’s next?

N/A

Guiding principles What we want to find out by being in field?

1. Enables us to think about our own strategies and ask:

b) How might our ideas integrate with the user’s everyday setting?

c) Is this idea even relevant for the users?

d) Are we building on false preconceptions about this field or topic?

e) How might we collaborate with communities and citizens in better ways?

Principles

1. Tell me, but if you can, show me

2. Understand the language of the user

3. Find out the “system in use” in situ

4. Keep enquiry simple, understandable and relatable

5. Maintain privacy and ethical standard at all times

What will we gather in the field?The idea is that we want to collect as many different types of material from engaging with citizens and frontline staff – that way we can generate rich journey map stories and get as close to their experience as possible. The materials we will gather include:

- Written interview notes

- Observation notes (story like descriptions) about the citizens’ everyday life or context which might prove insightful about their world and relevant to the project

17

- Photographs (with similar intent to observation notes)

- Audio / visual recordings of the interviews (to capture insightful quotes and full-length stories)

Recording the interview

Three methods: written, taped and videotaped. The current facilities will mean written notes will be the main method. To facilitate notes please use the interview note pad (based on the questions below) and consider noting:

Exact quotes

Use pseudonyms or unique identities e.g. number to ensure anonymity

Record date, time, place on all notes (use interview scribe pad)

Record the flow or any process that falls from the conversation

Generate Narratives

Another really powerful method is to generate a narrative of each of your interviewees. This will help create Personas that help us understand the customer’s journey. Generate these as rapidly as you can in field to speed up the write-up process.

Research with your eyes

Make observations of unspoken behaviours.

For example:

Did you notice that the customer was reluctant to elaborate on a particular point?

Did they provide any background information that might shed light on their current situation?

How was their environment organised or structured? Are there any photographs, pictures, pamphlets, fridge magnets that give an insight into their life?

Interviewer Safety & Comfort

Please be aware that if at any time you as the Interviewer feel uncomfortable or threatened, you have a right to stop the session and leave the premises. The interview process should be comfortable for both parties.

Ethical issues

Vulnerable families are often experiencing a state of crisis and have to be met with a careful and empathetic approach. Ethical attention points include:

- What are the specific circumstances to be taken into account? Are these affecting the way we are engaging them? For example, should we refrain from talking about certain topics?

18

- How will the way we are getting access affect the data? Do their existing relationship with the service providers or the government influence how they act and what they say?

- Are there are existing conflicts, either internally in the family or between the family and other actors, that could influence the interview and the data gathered from it?

- ACT Government involvement – will that prohibit families acting how they would normally do and express their actual interests and experiences?

- Possible re-interaction with families if they are interested and capable – evaluate this during and after the interview.

- Awareness of an appropriate wording for vulnerable families – the family usually identify themselves as vulnerable family.

19

Section 3: Interview Process Introduction – First 5 minsBeginning an Exploratory Interview1

Introduce yourself and the project, including the organisation sponsoring it – refer to the Participant information Sheet (copy of which can be left with the participant if they want a copy)

o The ACT Government and Community Service Organisations recognise that the current service and support system which families are dealing with has become more and more complex. Hence, this project ‘Listening to the community’ was initiated to better understand the experience of community members accessing multiple services provided by the government and non-government organisations.

The purpose of the project is to interview several families to identify what makes the experience inconvenient, unproductive, difficult or even impossible. These interviews will help us to tell the real story of families’ experiences and insights. These stories will help the service providers to understand problems, challenges, and ideas to improve your experiences accessing services.

Ensure confidentiality, and explain how you will protect privacy

o Everything you say stays within this study and won’t be shared with any other area of ACT Government, except as anonymous comments. Nothing you say will be used against you by any organisation or government department.

Tell interviewees that their views are very important to you and the project, and explain why.

o We’re interested in understanding what sorts of services you’ve accessed and experiences you’ve had to deal with in your current situation. The purpose is to build a general picture of the citizen group and how they use different types of services in their everyday lives. We’ll then be able to use that picture to better understand, visualise and express the problems and experiences of the citizens and families.

Ask permission to record interviews by audio-recording and in writing.

o With your permission, we’d like to audio record and/or video the interview. With your permission we’ll take some photos of your surroundings. It helps us to visualise how citizens/families experience problems in their everyday lives and how they interact with multiple social services in the service system. We can show you any shots before we go and you can delete any shot you don’t want taken.

Then ask them to sign the consent form and make sure they are comfortable with that process. (If they want a copy they can have one)

1 Source: Essential Ethnographic Methods Book 2, Schensul & LeCompte, 1999 p133

20

Make interviewees comfortable by asking how they are, how their day went, how their family is, or some other culturally appropriate small talk.

General demographics - 10 mins

1.Gender

[Don’t need to ask]

• Male

• Female

2. Age

What is your age?

• Under 20

• 20 – 29

• 30 – 39

• 40 – 49

• 50 – 59

• 60 +

3. Describe your household

What is your living situation?

• With family

• With friends

• By yourself

• With partner

4. Children

How many children do you have?

• 0

• 1

• 2

• 3

• 4

• 5+

5. Employment / social status

What is your current situation?

• Employed? (Where and what?)

• Social benefits? (Income?)

6. What services do you receive from government or other organisation?

21

QUESTIONS

Tell us a bit about yourself, your background, family, we want to get a picture of who you are (including demographics).

How do you experience your situation today?

We’re talking to you today because you get services from ____________ (community organisation) and

perhaps some other organisations. We want to understand about your experiences and perspectives

from your daily life.

(Important: time frame for life/service journey depends on the relevance of the journey to the current situation of the

family – it can be the time since they arrived in Australia or the time since they were in an accident/got divorced;

whatever is necessary to get a good understanding of their situation).

Life/service journey (aim for illustrative and ‘thick’ description)- How did you come in touch with the community organisation? How are they helping

you? When did you get in contact? Why did you get in touch with them? What

happened before that? (working your way backwards in time for illustrative

description using ‘how’, ‘when’, ‘what’, and ‘why’ approach – important with open

questions)

- What is the one thing that you need most right now, but have problems getting

access to? What is the problem? Why is it important? Can you tell us more about

how this became a problem? (description of journey using ‘how’, ‘when’, ‘what’, and

‘why’ approach – important with open questions)

Interaction (apply when useful during the life/service journey):

- Who is involved in your daily life? (friends, family, others?) Who do you rely on? Do

these people influence how you live? Are they important in relation to the kind of help

you ask for?

- What services have you accessed in the last 3 – 6 months? (Some examples may be:

community organisations, welfare agencies, respite services, support groups, health professionals, state

bodies, educational institutions, employment services and for the departmental services, CRS Australia,

Child Support, Medicare and Centrelink)

- Why do you use this service? How long (or how frequently) have you been using this

service? How do you access this service? Tell me about this experience. What are

your feelings about this service? What problems have you encountered in accessing

this service?

- Are there services you would like to use, but can’t? Could you please explain why

22

you can’t access them? Please give an example.

Possible questions for emotional reflection (apply during the interview when appropriate):- Can you describe how this made you feel?

- How do you see your own situation now? What are your possibilities?

- What would you wish that could happen for your family right now?

- Why are these things so important for you?

- What kind of support did you have to handle these problems? (Public services,

community, friends, family?). What did you miss?

Reflection questions in relation to service system (apply when appropriate):Understood by the system

- Do you feel understood and listened to by the community organisations? Can you

give an example?

- Do you understand the purpose / aim of the services you use – how the services are

trying to help you? Does it make sense for you?

Multiple services

- How many people (from government or community organisation) are you interacting

with? What do they demand from you?

- Have you experienced being ‘forgotten’ by the system? When? Can you give us an

example?

- Who is responsible for the consequences of your situation? Who could or should

help you?

Contacting public services

- How do you experience contacting the public organizations? Do you experience any

barriers in this respect?

- What channels do you use in order to access the appropriate information for your

situation and how do you experience these? What matters for you in this respect?

- Describe a critical situation that you found particularly difficult and where you needed

support from a community organisation or the government.

- Can you describe a situation where you felt supported in a really good way? What

worked? What made this support good?

Possible questions for desired realities (apply when appropriate)- What would be the three main things you would change about your life?

- How would that affect your current life and relationships?

23

INNOVATE: Recommendation, Wishes, Ideas

How can we help? What does your desired service system look like?

i. Imagination exercise (maybe use cultural probes to ideate)

ii. How would it be different?

iii. Who should be involved?

iv. How should it be organised?

v. What would be your role?

CLOSE

Ask them if there are any other questions

Thank them for their time

As agreed costs for their time – payment of $50.00 in a marked envelope

*Interviewer:If you identify that the family was well engaged and had the ability to conceptualise and engage in the future idea of this project, please ask them “If we come back to this field again to prototype and test an approach, would you be interested in taking part?”

Activities after interviewReflecting the interviewUse the time immediately after or in between interviews to document your first impressions. This includes reflecting on the interview itself and refining the interview questions. Make use of post-it notes and sketch pads to start generating the journey map. Pay attention to quality quotes and start to see and state themes.

Shortly after the interviews, we will facilitate across the whole team.

A good structure for this process is:

What did you observe?

What question/s did that trigger?

What was the insight/s?

24

Guiding framework for research and analysisThe following principles and questions are meant to work as basis for conducting the research and developing interview guides as well as a possible frame of analysis and synthesis in the later stages of the project. They are cross-cutting focus areas that are meant to relate to the fundamental relationship between families and public services :

Interaction is inappropriate – the citizen cannot relate to the overall purpose and intent with the interaction

Lack of meaning – when the citizen is not able to see the meaning in the interaction with the public sector

Experiencing that the public sector is not cooperating – when public organizations do not coordinate their processes

Interaction is unreasonable – The citizen does not experience a congruent relationship between what is demanded and the purpose of the interaction

Experience of an inappropriate division of responsibilities

When the citizen has to coordinate between various authorities herself

Conflicting rules or rules out of touch with the capabilities of the citizen

Experiencing unfair sanctioning

When the citizen doubts that the system wants what is best for her

Interaction is unclear – when what is communicated is not understandable or experienced as not meeting the citizen in a meaningful way

When the citizen does not understand the decisions made by the public organisation

Unclear information (too general, too much, conflicting)

When the citizen lacks fundamental insight into or oversight over the process that she is going through

25

Section 4:Post-FieldIn order to avoid losing any information during research and fieldwork, we will document every interview and meeting in detail. These write-ups will be used in the activities following the fieldwork. The following table lists all future activities:

When Activity Output

Last week of May

Facilitate workshop for:

Understanding current experiences

Analysing findings

Harvesting insights

Documented citizen journey maps

Insights (personas, transition points, etc.) representing citizens and their experiences

Insights answering the research questions

1st week of June

Conduct interviews for ideation with 3 groups in order to generate and discuss ideas (fieldshops)

Insights engaging 3 groups (perspectives), like citizens, ACT Government and NGOs

Ideas for improving the service system

3rd week of June

Workshop for defining the final report containing a proposed blueprint for the system

Final Report containing the service system blueprint

26

· Web viewrecognise that the current service and support system which families are dealing with...

Documents

Transcript of · Web viewrecognise that the current service and support system which families are dealing with...