March ENews

Greetings from the ConNetica Team

Best wishes for 2011 and welcome to our 1st Enews, you have been subscribed because you either registered on our website or you were selected from our address book. If you do not wish to receive our newsletter please unsubscribe. 

We have now our new website up and looking great.  www.connetica.com.au. Our site provides free access to a range of articles and analsis of current issues, an overview of our services, projects, clients, testimonials, products and coming conferences.

Many thanks to our expert panel members who are included on our website and to Online Marketing Collective, BJN Graphic Design and Liz Neil, our office manager, for your design and development work.

An Insight into some of ConNetica's projects 

 

Formalising a Career Path – Qld HACC Sector

 
The Queensland Community Services Skilling Plan to develop HACC sector wide generic competency based position descriptions that will reflect different hierarchical levels and roles. These descriptions will be aligned with VET qualifications in the HACC, Aged Care and Disability sectors.

The project will result in the HACC workforce having:

 

• A clearly defined career path within the HACC sector, and

• Clearly defined core and elective competencies that are relevant to current positions and jobs at level within the broader Community Services sector. 

Best Practice Employment Programs

ConNetica is a member of a consortium with Pathways Rehabilitation and Support Service (a psychosocial rehabilitation provider) and Employment Services Holdings (a Job Services Australia provider) that has been contracted by DEEWR to deliver the Family Centred Employment Project (FCEP) in Goodna, Queensland. This is a national demonstration project with significant implications for working with people with complex needs.

The three main objectives of the project are to provide data and information about:
 

• clients who participate in the FCEP and their journey to/attainment of employment, education/training and social participation outcomes
• the effectiveness of FCEP wrap around services and a no wrong door approach to service delivery
• good practice behaviours and principles that underpin the successful participation of jobless families, and the establishment of wrap around and no wrong door approaches to service delivery. 

ConNetica’s role in this process is to evaluate the impact of the program on the above three objectives. To this end, ConNetica has developed three project specific evaluation tools and sourced two international quality of life and resilience tools. ConNetica is gathering data throughout this three-year project from the FCEP project team, service providers and clients via online surveys, face to face and phone interviews, review of client management data, attendance at relevant stakeholder meetings and desk top review of relevant information. ConNetica’s findings are regularly shared with the project team and other key stakeholders so that ongoing improvements are made throughout the project to better meet the needs of clients.

This project has significant national importance. The findings from this project will form the basis of a ‘good practice model’ for broader application in supporting jobless families.  

Breaking the Silence – A Seminal Report into Suicide in Australia

 

ConNetica worked with a consortium of organisations to prepare a national report to highlight the state of suicide and suicide prevention in Australia. The report showed that suicide is preventable, that there are proven strategies not currently deployed in this country and provided the first estimate of the real cost of suicide to the Australian community. This report can be downloaded or purchased in hardcopy from ConNetica.

Positioning the Mental Health Sector – VICSERV

ConNetica worked with VICSERV, the state peak body representing over 60 Victorian community mental health service providers, to develop:

• A sector development strategy to position the sector to take advantage of growth opportunities
• A comprehensive literature review outlining the case for investment in the community mental health sector
• A series of papers designed to keep VICSERV and its members abreast of current political developments with regards to national health reform and its impact on mental health

Coming Products

ConNetica is developing a workplace mental health diagnostic tool that organisations can use to determine which of the many publicly available workplace mental health programs are best tailored to their unique needs and context. More details in early 2011.

Ongoing Commitment to Mental Health & Community Services

 

In 2010, our team collectively dedicated more than 500 hours of pro bono work to mental health issues, including services and advice to many NGO and government organisations. Our level of advocacy, including radio and TV interviews, newspaper articles and guest speaking arrangements was considerable.

Our commitment to improving the provision of mental health services and community services in general will continue in 2011.