Institute for
Social Science Research

It is not a well-known fact, but 42% of Australia’s homeless population are under 25 years old. In Queensland alone, every night about 4,500 young people are without safe and secure housing.

The families of homeless young people are most often portrayed as a precipitating factor in their homelessness, yet research and practice demonstrate that there is also a critical role to be played by family members in enabling young people to exit homelessness – positively influencing the housing trajectories of homeless young people. With effective enabling interventions, families can play a valuable supportive role building positive futures for young people who experience or are at risk of homelessness.

Locally in Brisbane, Brisbane Youth Service has been a leading provider of youth homelessness interventions for over 40 years – assisting young people aged 12–25 years and their accompanying children to end their experience of homelessness. Recognising the value of intervening as early as possible to interrupt the causes of homelessness before young people become entrenched in the homelessness system, Brisbane Youth Service have used youth voice and experiential wisdom to co-design the Safe and Connected Futures Program, which is funded by Hand Heart Pocket.

The Safe and Connected Futures Program helps young people to improve relationships with family members to prevent homelessness, or to strengthen support networks if they leave home or live independently – ultimately seeing young people directed away from the homelessness system and into safe and connected new futures.

To ensure that the Safe and Connected Futures Program was firmly grounded in a youth-led approach and designed to be inclusive of youth-voice, researchers from ISSR worked with Brisbane Youth Service staff to contextually adapt participatory design methods to engage young people with lived experience in the program development. This brings the young people’s wisdom and local knowledge to the forefront to ensure that the program is feasible, effective, efficient, and appropriate.

Through several co-designed workshops that centred 20 young people who had experience of homelessness as experts in the design process, the need for a responsive and flexible program was highlighted – where program goals and activities are tailored to the needs of the young person and chosen family member. A co-designed program prototype comprising five components was developed that was further peer reviewed through workshopping with stakeholders representing not-for-profit organisations, state government departments, flexi schools and youth service organisations – resulting in a final prototype Safe and Connected Futures Program design.

Recognising the importance of evaluation as a continuous process of good program design, ISSR researchers also developed the Safe and Connected Futures Program Evaluation Plan to support Brisbane Youth Service with their future activities. The Evaluation Plan identified the guiding theoretical frameworks, the key evaluation questions and the Program Logic that underpin and inform the Plan, as well as the indicator framework for both the process and outcome evaluation, which included the data collection methods and tools.

The process evaluation was designed to assess whether the Safe and Connected Futures Program is being implemented as it was designed, whereas the outcome evaluation will assess how effective the Safe and Connected Futures Program is in delivering the impacts and outcome needed to achieve the overall Program aim.

It is anticipated that the evaluation will result in improved future implementation and effectiveness of the Safe and Connected Futures Program, as well as an improved evidence-informed practice for effective approaches to building supportive relationships between young people and their chosen family members in the continued quest to end youth homelessness.

Education is often seen as the basis to build the best possible future for an individual, regardless of background or personal circumstances. In response, over the last three decades the Australian Government has developed targeted policy initiatives – which includes the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program (HEPPP) – to address inequities in educational outcomes for young people from six equity target groups.

Introduced in 2010, the HEPPP has provided supplementary funding to universities to build the aspirations and capacity of students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds to take part and succeed in higher education. Under the HEPPP, Australia’s 37 public universities have designed equity programs in response to local community circumstances and the nature of their student body.

ISSR has strong expertise in student equity research and evaluation, and researchers from ISSR were engaged by the Australian Department of Education, Skills and Employment (the Department) to design the Student Equity in Higher Education Evaluation Framework (the Framework). The project was a direct response to the 2017 ACIL Allen Review of the HEPPP, which recommended that an embedded evaluation framework be developed to collect necessary data to better measure and monitor the impact of HEPPP-funded activities, and to guide universities in quality improvement and impact evaluations.

In order to ensure that the Framework expanded upon previous and current evaluation expertise in the sector and met stakeholder needs, the project was co-designed via three workshops in consultation with over 60 members of the Australian higher education sector. Other consultations were undertaken with 25 data experts and custodians from 13 organisations around data content and quality, ongoing and planned data integration projects, and privacy and ethics considerations. The ISSR team also consulted closely with the Department and academics and practitioners involved in cognate projects. Structured rapid reviews of the relevant literature and a data linkage review of existing data supplemented the strong sector consultations. The draft Framework was also road-tested using a public webinar and associated consultations, which included a targeted stakeholder survey to gauge the sector reactions to the proposed approach (see below).

Robust evaluation frameworks are built on strong foundations. For this project, a number of building blocks provided the structure to the Framework, including the categorisation of student life stages; a distinction between HEPPP-funded programs and HEPPP-funded activities; a typology of HEPPP-funded activities; a Student Pathway Map; and a HEPPP Program Logic to articulate the pathways through which HEPPP-funded projects are likely to bring about change in primary outcomes (see full report).

The Framework identified evaluation activities to be delivered at the university level and those to be considered at the level of the Australian Government – and how university and national activities should be linked and triangulated to enable a comprehensive evaluation of the HEPPP.

In terms of the university level, the Framework distinguished between Continuous Quality Improvement (activities aimed to improve the design, implementation and performance of activities and programs), and Impact Evaluation, encompassing Quantitative Impact Evaluations and Theory-based Impact Evaluations, with a set of criteria to support universities to make an informed assessment of what programs they will prioritise for impact evaluation, and why.

As part of the final consultation process, the Framework was opened for sector consultation via a webinar and post-webinar survey. The survey results showed a high (75%–96%) level of acceptance of the Framework within the sector, but concerns were raised about resources and implementation – which require effective governance and leadership.

To support implementation of the Framework, ISSR additionally developed stakeholder-informed planning, reporting, and data collection tools and templates, as well as a Guidance Manual designed for university staff with responsibility for equity policy and programs, and relevant stakeholders.

ISSR will continue to support the Framework implementation and the sector to strive for improved educational outcomes for all.

Warning: This story contains links to sensitive information that some readers may find distressing.

While Australia is one of the safest places in the world for a baby to be born, every day in Australia, six babies are stillborn and two die within 28 days of birth. The loss of a child who is stillborn or dies soon after birth has wide ranging, and long term psychosocial and economic consequences for families, and the care that parents receive is critically important for their future wellbeing. Around the time a baby dies, parents face many difficult decisions that can be hard to think about or discuss. Sensitive and timely information to support decision-making is vital, but often lacking.

To better support grieving parents, ISSR researchers – through their involvement in the Stillbirth Centre of Research Excellence – have developed a parent version of the Clinical Practice Guideline for Care Around Stillbirth and Neonatal Death, developed for clinicians by the Centre of Research Excellence in Stillbirth and the Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand in 2020.

The guide – Guiding Conversations with your health care team when your baby dies – was developed in consultation with bereaved parents, clinicians, parent support groups and others who are committed to best care following the death of a baby. Interviews and discussion groups were held with 26 parents who had recent lived experience of stillbirth or neonatal death, helping to ensure the design and content was appropriate and acceptable to newly bereaved parents. For example, recognising that parents often find it helpful to hear from others who have faced a similar loss, the guide contains quotes from parents who share some of the things they themselves found helpful.

The guide also includes questions that may be helpful for parents to discuss with their health care team, along with links to more information and support organisations. The guide is structured to help parents think about what is important for them as a parent of their baby, help answer the questions and concerns they may have, and assist in working out what may be right for them as parents who have lost a baby.

The successful provision of the available clinical information to parents in an appropriate manner, represents yet another strong example of ISSR’s ability to move research ideas and findings into policy, practice, and consumer ready information and support.

Since becoming available in February 2022, the guide has been distributed to more than 40 maternity hospitals and organisations across Australia and has been warmly received by maternity care professionals and parents.