Queensland University of Technology

CRICOS No. 00213J

Building an evidence base for transforming disability services delivery

Engagement between university and services in supporting research for transformation

Jenni Mays

Presentation to

National Disability Summit 2016

I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands and pay

respect to their Elders - past, present and emerging – and acknowledge the important role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to play within the community.

of

www.reconciliation.qut.edu.au

CRICOS No. 00213J

Overview

• Universities, organisations and people with

disabilities are at the forefront of researching

and piloting strategies

• Building new knowledge and practice

– Key to transitioning to NDIS and developing

authentic real world policy and practice

• Why partner and develop collaborations?

• Purpose and incentives for partnering

• Types of collaborations, sticky issues,

influence and strategies

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Current Developments

• Literature on partnering and collaboration focuses on

– Strengths and benefits for people with disabilities, academic

institutions and organisations

– Steps in developing effective partnerships (Moseley, 2007)

• Gaps in literature

– Reality of project life cycles, what is good practice and how

does it occur, specific challenges that come up and how to

respond

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Contemporary Context – What We Know

• Paradigm shifts in delivery of disability services

– Person-centred services tailored to individual

• NGOs changing their business models

– Fee-for-service regime requiring greater knowledge of

disability market e.g. service requirements, demand volume

and the location of persons with disability

– Ensuring quality service provision to vulnerable groups in the

community– http://www.ey.com/AU/en/Industries/Government---Public-Sector/Government-Agenda-2014---8-

--Human-Services

CRICOS No. 00213J

Why Develop Partnerships and Collaborations?

• Potential for greater innovation and

collaboration

– New ways of doing in current environment

• Be the driving force of the change

• Partnership approach as a strategy for

building an evidence-base for future

development

• Development of new social and business

models

CRICOS No. 00213J

Why Collaborate?

Engage in high impact research and development in specialised areas

Generate outcomes and practical benefits

Promote an integrated response to issues and problems

Multi-faceted reasons - build connections between policy, research, theory and practice

Authentic reciprocal exchanges lead to mutual benefits, shared interests

Capture outcomes for reporting, developing professional practice, new models in service delivery

E.g. Recommendation made for ‘NGO Maturity Assessment: develop an assessment tool to assist NGOs in building their capability and capacity for strategy, governance and cash management, allowing them to sustain their operations now and into the future’ http://www.ey.com/AU/en/Industries/Government---

Public-Sector/Government-Agenda-2014---8---Human-Services

Bottom Up

Top Down

Ten

sio

ns

Tensio

ns

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PWD

Academic Institution

NGOs/FPO

/Other

Policy devt & dissemination

Training & devt

Tools, practice knowledge and skills

Stakeholder engagement,

exepertise & research

PAR, fieldwork, data collection

Advocacy, lobbying, expert advisors

Stakeholders

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Partnership

• Partnership involves joint decision-making and production

• Partners have shared responsibility in framing the need for action

• Function as co-producers in determining steps and action requirements and actualising the project plan

• Collaborative and mutually engaging process where there is a shared vision, goals and interests which in turn is transformed into an project and series of actionable steps

E.g. student partners

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Types of Partnership

• Based on scope of the collaboration, the initiator, the

level of participation of each partner, and approach to

capacity building

• Expert-consultant model and Expert-trainer mode

– Academic seen as expert in identifying and improving NGO

capacity gaps (E.g. program evaluation and AusAID leadership

training)

– Formalised agreement or contract. Academic consultant

commissioned by NGO to deliver on an already designed and

specified outcome

• Co-producer or Joint learning model

– Sharing or broker of skills and knowledge, shared vision,

values and interests

– Emphasis on long-term partnership and sustainability

• Evaluating the effectiveness of programs or interventions

• Focus on impact measurement

• Research on interventions and psychosocial change

• Effectiveness of programs and redesign

Operational Formative

EvaluativeSummative

Types of Collaborative Research

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Partnership & EBP

• Evidence Based Practice is, according to Munro (1998), an

approach to social work and human services that encourages

workers to use empirically tested methods to formulate their

reasoning around interventions and to evaluate their own

work rigorously

• Valued attributes of Expertise (reputation, research and

communication skills, knowledge of policy & processes) and

Integrity (authenticity and faithful reporting of research)

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Markers of Successful Partnership

• Decisions shaped by values, politics and evidence

• Bold innovation comes from big ideas and exercising

imagination (moral and sociological)

• Relationships are key to constructing, disseminating and

using knowledge – be co-producers in your reality

• Appreciate the power of narrative to influence political ideas (stories, case studies, ‘real life’ characters)

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Roles and Strategies

• Academic researchers can help in grant writing,

procurement, and management of funding for the project

– Training and research design, support to facilitate activities

• Collaborative development of purpose and goals, data

collection, issue selection, and identification of

dissemination and advocacy strategies.

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Markers for Success

• Being open and aware of what each brings to the

table, including, skill, knowledge, expectations and

capacities

• Set up collaborations that bridge the gap between

academic and practice endeavours

• Support collaborations that work for all parties and

i.e. what suits the other better, in turn mirroring joint

learning type of collaboration

• Research having “utility for practice” – evidence,

research and practice informed

• Aim for bridging the intellectual and cultural divide

between academics, people with disabilities and NGO

practitioners

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Building Capacity with People with Disabilities and Families

• In Queensland, attention has been paid to people with

disabilities developing capacity for selecting and choosing

their provider and expenditure of funds (social capital)

• Opportunities for leadership development and mentorship

• Creating the space to facilitate progress

• Harness the energy, resources and creativity of all

stakeholders to work together to improve leadership or

participation

•

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What are some of the sticky issues

• Differences in intellectual, cultural, philosophical logics

including worldview / discourse

• The social world is messy and defies simple measurement

• Time pressures are the enemy of evidence informed policy

– Knowing less actually makes political decisions easier

– The cultural tendency to hang onto old habits and myths (path dependency/social conformity)

• Uncertainties not eradicated by evidence, but they can be diminished

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Partnership and Research Impact on Practice• Demand for partnership driven by need for concrete

outcomes, demonstrable impact from interventions and

impact on society

• Embedding practice and research skillset and

understanding within organisation to ensure sustainability

• Opportunity to explore research questions as well as staff

needs and interests in supporting a continuing agenda in

collaborative practice research

Mentoring from university

collaboration on development of research design

and data collection and

analysis

Staff research groups

Develop practice research

questionsInput in terms of

expressed interest of staff

Staff project leader appointed

Joint publications, conference presentations, higher degree research opportunities, new

skill-set

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Case StudiesCase Study Partners Research Objective Classification

1. Program Evaluation

University and Large NGO

Measure effectiveness of program as pathway out of poverty and actual impact on client

EvaluationCo-collaborationCo-producers

2. Building capacity of women with disabilities as leaders (Local)

Women with disabilitiesLarge NGOUniversity

Develop leadership potential

Co-collaborationCo-producersSome technical advice (research design training)

3. Building capacity of women with disabilities as leaders (International)

Women with disabilities Tanzania & Ghana

Leadership training Develop leadership potential Action plan development & implementation

Co-collaborationCo-producersReciprocated technical training

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Case Study 1 Program Evaluation

• Responded to the expressed needs of organisation to

measure program (and model) effectiveness

• Time spent building relationship across different sites and

setting up feedback / communication networks

– Rigorous approach rather than anecdotal evidence

• Co-producers of knowledge

– Strategy of group supervision / knowledge sharing – set up a

regular time for case managers to link up via phone, skype or

google hangout

• Forum for knowledge sharing and collective discussion

(sustainable), celebrate successes of all and what working

• Development of report and feedback loop

Case Study 1 Narrative and Model

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Case Study 2 Building Leadership Capacity

• Responds to lived experience and mentorship tools

– Knowledge building on leadership

• Women themselves best understand life with a disability

and engaging in leadership roles

• Focus groups to identify leadership, subsequent interview

questions, data collection and analysis and themes

identification write-up

• Group consensus on the project - investigate and evaluate

general issues of leadership, with a focus on identifying

barriers and facilitators for potential leadership roles

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Case Study 2 Building Leadership Capacity

• Project aims to provide a voice to women with sensory and physical impairments of their actual or aspirational leadership experiences

– Build capacity through engagement in the project and identifying tools for gendered leadership development

• Process: qualitative exploration of women’s leadership -focus group, in-depth interview and leadership workshops (resource tool development)

• Insights gained from discussion to inform the refinement of in-depth interview schedule

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Case Study 3 Women’s Leadership (International)

• Responds to lived experience, training workshops, reciprocal co-production of knowledge, travel on invitation• Knowledge building on women’s leadership

• Women engaged in leadership roles • Initial two-day intensive workshops in-situ on

leadership and action plan development and implementation• Outcome of workshops – plan progression and

strategies developed, technical skill development

• Reciprocal training and mentoring in-country (knowledge transfer)• Visit welfare department, hospitals, schools,

women’s collectives to see social enterprise and townships

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Resources and Contributions to Partnerships Experience

Women with disabilities

•Women led women's disability organisations

•Leadership in field visits, research development and projects

•Shivywata

•Women led design of program and collectives

•Women involved in capacity building and social capital enterprise

•As academics we were guided by the women leaders

•Masai village visit

•Community leaders, formalities and local rules / knowledge

Organisations

•Field visits to different towns and sites

•Local knowledge of issues iepoverty

•Access to community leaders

•Albino community

•Women's collectives

•High level of trust

•Engagement with hospitals, schools, welfare department

•Technical skills and networks for policy implementation

•Project development and resource support

Academic Institutions

•In-country visit and field trip

•Two-day intensive workshop with resources

•Skills development and empowerment drawing on local knowledge

•PAR research approach

•Project development

•Local action plan over 3 years

•Technical skills in research design, methodology , analysis

•Brand and reputation –engagement with local, national and international communities

•Access to journals, reports, conferences, projects

•Skills and knowledge transfer -reciprocal

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Generic Resources and Contributions to Partnerships

People with disabilities

•Knowledge and skills

•Leadership

•Lived experience, life stories, skills and expertise

•Alternative viewpoint

Organisations

• In-depth knowledge and experience of practice context

•Brand and reputation –engagement with local area

•Technical skills and networks for policy implementation & projects

Academic Institutions

•Technical skills in research design, methodology , analysis

•Brand and reputation –engagement with local, national and international communities

•Access to journals, reports, conferences, projects

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Summary of Challenges

• Maintaining sustainable and productive long-term

institutional commitments

• Diversity in time and workload management across

academic institutions, people with disabilities and

organisations

• High staff turnover can lead to a loss of institutional

knowledge and relationships, loss of individual expert

knowledge

•

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Challenges and Influences• Organisations should be up front about value basis

– Aligning Valued Based Practice and EBP

• Practice wisdom, tacit knowledge, judgement are just as relevant as technical EBP e.g. cost-benefit analysis, program effectiveness

• People with disabilities and NGOs are producers, co-producers and not simply users of research

• Acknowledge that ‘frames’ matter more than ‘facts’ (social advocacy remains important here)

• Appreciate the power of narrative to influence politicians (stories, case studies, ‘real life’ characters)

.

Time is needed to

build trust and

develop

communication,

conflict management

and resourcing

strategies

(investment time can

be an additional

pressure on existing

workload and

delivering timely

project outcomes)

Inspires all – reciprocal knowledge transformation

Creates different ways of working together

Capacity for debriefing on lessons learned, documenting researcher experiences and including communication and implementation plans in the research design strengthens partnerships and enhance research outcomes

Challenges Can Create Opportunities

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Challenges Can Create Opportunities

Unexpected challenges

encountered during a project

can lead to greater

opportunities for reflection,

skills development and

stronger to collaborations

Data collection and analysis successes can yield information that is useful for advocacy and reporting

CRICOS No. 00213J

Successful Outcomes

• Diversity across partners, people and organisations

• Promote strong collaboration, learning new things

• Development of connections and networks

• Investing time into building relationships from the

beginning builds strong foundations for future

collaborations

• Quality and credibility – relevance of research

partnership

For Jobert and Hocking (2015) there was an unexpected outcome -Workforce development Identify specialised skills for particular practice contextsDevelopment of skills audit tool

Jobert & Hocking (205) suggest “practice research questions that evolve into different formats, funding opportunities, dissemination significance, and continuing research agendas across sites and disciplines. The collaboration has embedded a research skills set and the opportunity to participate in research, thus ensuring sustainability… been strengthened through continuing postgraduate study by staff members, student research placements, and continued involvement of a university academic mentor around staff identified practice research projects. Fundamental to this process … is practitioner initiation and engagement … manager commitment, and academic mentoring focused on … [community] outcomes

Any questions?

CRICOS No. 00213J

Correspondence details:Jennifer Mays, PhD Human Services Course Coordinator Public Health and Social Work QUT | Kelvin Grove OB615 Tel: +61 7 3138 4612 | Fax: +61 7 3138 0296 | CRICOS No 00213JEmail: j.mays@qut.edu.au