Flourish: a market-led approach to designing an intensive early years intervention
Market-led approaches to health and social services are considered to be a responsive, innovative and efficient mechanism in meeting the needs of consumers. At Beacon Strategies we were lucky enough to join one of our partner organisations for the journey.
Beacon Strategies was previously engaged by a group of forward-thinking community organisations to support the development of a business case for Flourish, an intensive early years education and child protection intervention aiming to break the cycle of intergenerational disadvantage for vulnerable children in Brisbane.
The process represents a market-led approach to service design and involved the development of a detailed needs assessment, service modelling and strategic funder engagement for two pilot sites in Brisbane South (Acacia Ridge and surrounds) and Brisbane North (Keperra and surrounds). The development of Flourish has been a collaborative effort between Belong, Communify and Act for Kids.
The overall goal of the project was to give prospective funders the confidence and imperative to support the establishment and implementation of the Flourish service model via the development of a formal business case. To do this, Beacon Strategies led a process that achieved the following:
Articulated the rationale for funding the service: inclusive of relevant policy level levers, the evidence in relation to the effectiveness of early intervention, the economic impacts and opportunities associated with early intervention, the population level need for the intervention and the gaps in service provision that currently exist that will be filled by the Flourish model.
Developed a detailed service model: inclusive of proposed clinical/operational governance, development of inward and outward referral pathways, articulation of literature that supports the key program components
Proposed an evaluation framework: inclusive of the identification of existing data sets to measure success in addition to any supplementary data sources that have to be factored into the data collection and monitoring plan.
Developed a financial model relating to the overall cost of implementation: inclusive of identifying funding sources for establishment, documenting operational costs, gaining support from infrastructure partners and documenting infrastructure cost
Established an approach to strategically communicating and engaging key partners: including the identification of key stakeholders and reaching agreement on the narrative and key messages to promote through appropriate channels.
The above process culminated in the development of a punchy summary document (below) that answers a number of key questions:
What is Flourish?
Who does Flourish target?
Why is Flourish needed?
What are the next steps to operationalising the model?
Go ahead and have a flick through the final summary document below:
We look forward to continuing to work alongside our partners Belong and Communify to directly engage with prospective funders and establish this important service within the broader child protection service environment.
On behalf of Belong, we would like to both acknowledge and thank the Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services for resourcing the development of the business case and investing in the development of evidence-based, impactful and measurable social change.