The team at Latitude Network is starting the year with a new more focused mission - 'Building a data-empowered social sector.' Why? Because we’ve learned over the last seven years of work with many great and varied organisations that data is a key to how we achieve better social impact. Most social organisations also recognise that they are at the early stages of their data journey, with plenty of opportunity to improve and grow. You can read more about what data empowerment looks like in this article or in our updated website. For Latitude Network, 2022 has been a year of growth, new challenges, and the rewards of seeing efforts come to fruition. We’re glad you’ve been with us on the journey, as partners, supporters or simply interested friends. Here are some of the highlights from our year. What are our major learnings from this year?
To the network of people with whom we work - those who are dedicated to improving social systems and social outcomes - we are deeply grateful to be collaborating with you on this important but difficult work. We look forward to connecting with more people in this movement for high performance and outcomes focus in 2023. Read about four important projects we undertook this year - Toward Home Alliance - a new way forward for homelessness servicesToward Home Alliance (THA) is a network of six housing services along with the South Australian Housing Authority, working together across South Australia to address homelessness in a single service system. In 2022, we conducted a detailed review of the Alliance’s operations and governance structure. As a trusted advisor for THA, we’ve worked with them for a number of years, and this next step allowed them to develop a new cross-agency operations manual. This truly is a ‘systems change’ project as it allows a single entity (the Alliance) to manage every part of the homelessness service system. The new operations manual was built to enable more than 100 staff working across five agencies plus multiple service partners to work to a common, integrated service model. This allows all agencies to provide more tailored, appropriate support but also to work across the usual silos of the sector. In 2023, we’ll work with THA on a ‘Continuous Quality Improvement’ process embedded in everyday operations. The aim is to continually update and improve service delivery, guided by the Ops Manual and by the data being collected by all services. Hello Sunday Morning - using data to create deeper understandingHello Sunday Morning (HSM) is a digital platform operating on mobile and desktop, established in 2009 to support people to reduce alcohol consumption and alcohol harm. Their Daybreak app enables and facilitates peer-to-peer support, generating over six million data points that HSM engaged Latitude Network to analyse.
The project helped the team interpret and segment the data and understand the stories it was telling about their clients, how they were using the app, and how to use the data to better support and engage clients. We provided detailed segmentation of the App users, provided insights about who is using the online service, for how long, how intensively, and how long they stay in contact. This allowed HSM to develop strategies to maintain connection with those likely to disengage. In 2023, we will use ‘machine learning’ tools to develop predictive models for the client to create an ongoing learning loop. This will then provide a range of early-warning data for HSM on factors such as likely client disengagement and drop-out rates and impact data. Using innovative new ways to track and measure data is crucial for services such as Hello Sunday Morning, and we’re excited to see how the service will evolve with increasingly rich and detailed data to support their development. You can read more about this project here. In September 2022, the $60M Brimbank Aquatic and Wellness Centre (BAWC) was opened in Melbourne’s inner west.
Community Colleges are important providers of education and job pathways for people with various barriers to learning and employment. They sit at the intersection of adult education and social impact, and government funders are increasingly looking to explore outcomes-based funding in this sector.
Latitude Network is working with the peak body Community Colleges Australia and five community colleges to run a collaborative data project with the NSW Department of Education. The aim is to develop a common set of data collection standards across multiple colleges to allow comparative data on outcomes and performance. This is an exciting project that demonstrates how data systems, continuous improvement and innovation processes can be applied at a systems level in social and education sectors. The project is designing a system that works for multiple different organisations using different student management systems (databases), in a range of different geographies serving a wide range of student needs. The de-identified data can then be collated across multiple organisations in a consistent way to create dashboards and analysis covering different programs, locations, services and outcomes. In the next phase Latitude Network will build common dashboards and conduct periodic ‘deep dives’, or data analytics reports, to generate insights that enable colleges to improve (optimise) services and social impact. Comparative data is very powerful because it allows individual colleges to anonymously see their performance in the context of the performance of other organisations delivering in different regions. This provides evidence to flag performance gaps and to learn from best practices with objective data (not just those who claim to have good practice). This work is important for peak bodies to consider as a tool to improve system performance in any sector or sub-sector of the social services system. Watch this space for more information as the project moves to implementation. Feel free to reach out to us about lessons from this project if you are seeking to improve performance in multi-stakeholder or cross-organisation collaborations. Latitude Network are thrilled to announce that we will be working with Reclink Australia and Vichealth on a unique outcomes challenge: to get 100,000 young Victorians to be more physically active and socially connected. In doing so, this project will tap into 160 different underutilised sites across Victoria to transform them into physical activity spaces for young people.
Funded by VicHealth and supported by a host of youth organisations and agencies, the project will be genuinely co-design and produced by young people, using open innovation thinking to ensure that physical activities and environments meet the needs and preferences of the young people who will use them. Latitude Network will bring its expertise in open innovation and data-driven performance management to ensure that this project generates lasting, measurable outcomes for young Victorians, whilst building capability in Reclink (and partners) in its approach to data, program design, segmentation, outcomes and impact measurement. More on the project here. SOCIAL ISSUE Prior to 2021, the South Australian homelessness funding, like most homelessness systems around the country, was divided between multiple different service providers who weren't incentivised to work together as one system. The three key limitations of the system were:
CLIENT CHALLENGE The South Australian Housing Authority (SAHA) sought to redesign the homelessness system in order to reduce the number of those at-risk of entering homelessness and the length of time people are in the system. To do this, SAHA divided its jurisdiction into five discrete regions and called on social service providers to develop solutions. In the Adelaide City and South region, Baptist Care SA, Lutheran Care, Mission Australia, The Salvation Army and Sonder came together to form the Toward Home Alliance. The challenge for the Toward Home Alliance was to redesign the homelessness system so that service users received a tailored and individualised response. Resources, accommodation and services needed to be aligned to the outcomes for each of the service user groups
The challenge of service design was compounded by the prevalence of factors that contribute to homelessness such as mental health, physical health, disability, drug and alcohol and life trauma - requiring the intervention to holistically address these issues too. THE ROLE LATITUDE NETWORK PLAYED Latitude Network played a central role in supporting the Toward Home Alliance. The process involved uniting a diverse set of national, state, local and Aboriginal-run service providers toward a common goal of reducing homelessness in a defined geographical region. The key functions of the Latitude engagement included:
THE IMPACT The first impact was that the innovative proposal was accepted by the South Australian Government with the Alliance winning the funding for Adelaide city and South. The funding changed on July 2021, and as with any significant system change, there are always lots of elements to work through. The team has formed well together and built a strong culture of collaboration, but it is still early days to work out how well the elements are working and how best to refine and iterate them. We will keep an eye out on the Toward Home progress and now doubt the challenges of making progress. |
Filter by:
All
Archives
April 2024
|