Budget fact sheets 2005 - Strengthening Families Co-ordinators increased hours

The Government is investing more than $2.3 million over four years to improve the Strengthening Families programme by increasing the paid hours of the programme’s co-ordinators.

Strengthening Families Co-ordinators work with service providers, particularly in the Health, Education and Welfare sectors, to achieve greater collaboration in the delivery of services to vulnerable children, young people and their families. A key component of this role is implementing a collaborative case management approach across those working with the family where more than one of the sectors is, or should be, involved.

Co-ordinators are paid to work on average 25 hours or less a week. The funding will increase this to an average of 30 hours per week. It will enable:

• More time to respond to the need for co-ordination and collaboration through case management at a local level.
• An early intervention approach which allows more self referral by families.

The additional funding will increase the time co-ordinators have to meet increased demand for Strengthening Families responses, and enable them to take a more preventative approach to individual cases as well as responding to new government programmes.