7. Considering Implementation

This section provides an overview of a number of issues that require attention for a smooth implementation process. Many of these issues were raised throughout the consultation process and have been noted for completeness. These issues include:

• alignment and mutual recognition of current state and territory standards;
• coverage of the National Standards and implications for placement options;
• establishing a minimum data set and baseline data;
• quality improvement versus compliance; and
• monitoring and reporting of the National Standards.

These issues are discussed below.

7.1 Alignment with current state and territory standards

A number of the National Standards for Out of Home Care are similar to standards already in place in a number of jurisdictions. Appendix A provides a comparison of the proposed National Standards to current state and territory standards.

Alignment with current state and territory standards is critical to minimise administrative imposts in the service system. State and territory monitoring regimes in most instances are relatively recent, and substantive investment has been made in developing these systems and processes. It is intended that the National Standards will provide for mutual recognition wherever possible, rather than add another layer of reporting.

7.2 Coverage of National Standards

As noted in the consultation summary the issue about who is covered by the National Standards was a point of contention with all stakeholders groups. In general, at an aspirational level, all parties agreed that all stakeholders involved in the provision of Out of Home Care services should be covered by the National Standards. Some groups went so far as to suggest that the National Standards could create a benchmark for all who are involved in supporting children and young people during their journey through childhood and adolescence.

The majority of stakeholders recognised the challenges involved in determining who should be covered by the National Standards. The groups that consistently presented most challenges in terms of coverage were:

• Kinship carers, where no relationship exists with an agency and where the arrangement has not been mandated by a court order. Participants were divided about whether the National Standards should have application where no formal arrangements exist with kinship carers, citing the difficulty in monitoring and measuring whether outcomes are being met.
• Care arrangements that are not in the purview of child protection agencies, such as disability accommodation, juvenile justice arrangements and other care arrangements. When coverage of these sectors was raised, there was a consistent view that they should be subject to similar standards even though they do not fall under the formal definition of Out of Home Care.

One option to consider may be the New South Wales Children's Guardian's proposed path of having a stepped implementation of the National Standards, with initial coverage confined to those children and young people in statutory care, followed by coverage of voluntary care arrangements after an evaluation of the National Standards. Possible extension to other care areas such as disability, and juvenile justice (also proposed by the Association of Children's Welfare Agencies submission) could be considered later.

In addition to the issue of coverage is the need to consider the impact the duration of the placement has on the capacity of the Out of Home Care system to respond to the full suite of requirements that arise from the National Standards. For example, participants in the consultations (principally representatives from non-government organisations and government agencies and departments) noted that it would be difficult to have a positive impact on a child/young person's outcomes if the child or young person is only in Out of Home Care for a short period (less than 6 months) compared to those in care long-term, or on a permanent basis.

7.3 Minimum data set

With regards to Out of Home Care there is limited consistency in data items collected across jurisdictions that enable ready comparison. Accurate measurement of performance against the National Standards, both within jurisdictions and between jurisdictions, is dependent on the collection of consistent and comparable information of data items across jurisdictions.

While the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare provides some national data on the Out of Home Care system, this is reliant on jurisdictions providing the information. At present this is underpinned by different data collection processes and data counting rules. In order to measure and monitor the National Standards, a minimum data set and agreed counting rules must be developed, to collect consistent and common information that reflects current performance at client, organisation, state and territory, and national levels. This would draw on existing collections and processes wherever possible.

7.4 Establishing the baseline

In order to improve the system at an individual, organisation, state and territory, and national level it is necessary to understand the 'as is' state of the system that is being monitored, so that realistic performance targets can be established. This would allow areas where performance is not at the required levels to be focussed upon in the first instance.

7.5 Quality improvement

The benchmarking of the National Standards must increase over time so that there is a focus on continuous improvement rather than meeting minimum requirements. In order to achieve this, review mechanisms must be agreed so that the benchmarks can be updated to reflect contemporary practice and research evidence.

7.6 Monitoring of the National Standards

Consistent feedback from the consultations suggested monitoring should be undertaken by an independent body.

There are a range of options that could be used to independently monitor the National Standards, including;

• Government requirement for self assessment, planning and reporting;
  In some respects this regime is currently in place in jurisdictions across Australia. However, this approach is complemented with external assessments undertaken by the Children's Guardian/Commissioner, Government Department responsible for Out of Home Care, or an external third party.
• Establish new registration and inspection processes;
  This is the route that England, Wales and Scotland have taken over recent years, with all residential facilities and all government (Local Authority), not-for-profit and private fostering services being registered by new independent regulatory bodies, and being inspected against their minimum national (country specific and not UK-wide) standards.
  It should also be noted that common to all of these jurisdictions, is public availability of all inspection reports via the websites of the regulatory body. Higher level monitoring can also be achieved: in Scotland for example, a report was prepared in 2007 that aggregated data from individual inspections to 'paint a picture' of what was happening nationally.⁸³
• External accreditation of government, private and not-for-profit organisations by an existing or new Australian independent body;
  This is a strong feature of Out of Home Care in the US and Canada with a focus upon organisational excellence. While there are a range of, and to some extent competing, accreditation bodies in place in North America with their own systems of standards and monitoring, they generally seem to operate in similar ways. One of the best known and possibly the one that is most focused upon the needs of children, young people and families is the New York based Council on Accreditation (COA).⁸⁴
• Incorporation of National Standards into current state and territory standards;
  All Commissioners for Children (or variations including Children's Guardian in NSW and Child Safety Commissioner in Victoria) have responsibility in some shape or form for monitoring Out of Home Care.
• Accountability of state and territory governments are accountable to the Commonwealth government;
  The United States of America has a Child and Family Service Review system in place whereby the Federal government monitors the performance of states through federally conducted evaluations of state child welfare systems by reviewing outcomes in three main areas (Safety, Permanency, and Well-being) as well as seven systemic factors.⁸⁵ Administered by the Children's Bureau which is part of the Department of Human Services, the purpose is measure compliance with federal policies. Where states are deemed to not comply, they are given an opportunity to put a case forward before financial penalties are imposed.
• Commissioning and publishing more Out of Home Care research and evaluation;
  Thinking of the term 'monitoring' in a broader and more national context, an option that might complement another approach would be to have a larger and ongoing national Out of Home Care research and evaluation programme in place. This would enable 'richer' data to be collected on the experiences on children and young people in Out of Home Care whilst also allowing for some generalisations to be made.
• Monitoring against forms of data already collected;
  None of the jurisdictions monitored Out of Home Care standards by such means. However, this approach forms part of the Child and Family Service Review system in the United States of America although they also use site visits as well.
• Publish results.
  As highlighted from the consultations, publishing results may also be seen as a legitimate form of monitoring.

7.7 Conclusion

The issues outlined above represent some of the challenges to the implementation of National Standards. To resolve these issues, the Commonwealth, state and territory governments and the non-government sector will need to continue to work collaboratively.