Phase Two: Program Implementation (October 2001 – September

with the official launch of the program. At this point tension had arisen between the project leader, Barbara, and the BSV Manager of Community Projects, Deidre. Barbara decided to resign from her position as project leader in November 2001. In January, 2002, Daniel was appointed as the new project leader for CFK.

Daniel was quite different from Barbara. His background was in community development whereas Barbara’s had been in secondary school teaching. Daniel had different ideas about the direction of the CFK program. Barbara’s background as a secondary school teacher had meant that she had worked closely with the local schools and that it was important to her that the programs implemented addressed needs identified by the schools. When Daniel started with CFK he felt that these programs were the responsibility of the school, and not CFK.

CFK continued with the plans that had been made in the previous phase, for the first six months of the implementation phase. A three week parenting enrichment program was implemented and volunteer training for the home visiting program commenced. People who lived in the community were coming into the office with various enquiries and Meredith was continuing to provide support for these families.

During this period the evaluators conducted a series of interviews with CFK staff and advisory committee members. These interviews revealed: a concern that CFK was moving away from its original focus on young people in the community; that ‘off the street enquiries’ were consuming a great deal of Meredith’s time making it very difficult for her to keep up with her other work; and that the advisory committee system was not working well.

Daniel and Deidre in particular were concerned that Meredith’s role in CFK was becoming too focused on crisis management. Daniel’s vision for CFK was to plan and implement programs that were universal, that is they included the community as a whole, were proactive rather than reactive and would be sustainable when CFK’s funding ceased. Meredith agreed that this was an

appropriate direction for CFK to be headed, but expressed a great deal of concern about not being able to meet the needs of families that came through the door. There was a lot of tension between Daniel and Meredith over this matter.

Daniel investigated many different avenues that he believed would fit with his vision of CFK’s future. In May 2002 Daniel gave a list of these to the

advisory committee for discussion. On the list were: a regional community foundation; a no dole pledge program; youth workshops; a school values program; and community choirs. He also outlined a number of potential programs that were more reactive and these included: a literacy program for Grade Prep children with an identified literacy problem; a mentoring program for local football players; and a neighborhood mediation program.

In an effort to relieve Meredith of some of the pressure of ‘off the street enquiries’ a part time receptionist was employed. The receptionist, Rowena became an integral part of the CFK team and remained with the program for the remainder of its funded period. Meredith continued her home visiting and volunteer training program. She also implemented a new program called the homework club. The homework club was a program that offered children a quiet place to complete their homework, have something to eat and interact with other children. It was run on two afternoons per week by Meredith and a volunteer. A group called ‘caring for carers’ began six weekly meetings and were supported by Meredith and CFK. Daniel continued to investigate the programs that he had outlined to the advisory committee. As part of this investigation Daniel took the principal of the local secondary school and another teacher to Tasmania to examine a no dole pledge program that had been implemented in a Tasmanian school.

Grade Prep teachers had identified a number of children with very poor literacy skills and had asked CFK to help them work with these children as well as try to identify possible reasons for what seemed a larger than normal number of children in this situation. A working party consisting of these teachers was formed and ideas for a program developed. Daniel obtained funds to appoint two part time sessional workers, Mary and Rhonda, to liaise with the working party and implement the program. These workers were employed for a period of 15

groups with the identified children, assess their literacy levels, interview parents of the children to identify possible causes of the poor literacy levels and report their findings in writing to BSV. The program was called Early Learning is Fun (ELF).

In October 2002, CFK celebrated its one year anniversary since the official launch. The walls of the office were decorated with descriptions of current and planned programs. A definite shift could be seen in the programs being

implemented by CFK. Although Meredith continued the homework club, the ‘home visiting program’, ‘caring for carers’ and parenting enrichment programs, very definite plans were being made for universal programs considered to be more proactive, more easily sustained by the community and designed to promote resilience rather than reduce risk.

There were three programs in particular that highlighted this shift. The Alexandra Real Connections program (ARC); Early Learning is Fun (spread the word) (ELF II); and Cathedral Youth Arts Project (CYAP). The ARC program was based on the no dole pledge program Daniel had investigated in Tasmania. It was a community wide program that aimed to increase education, training and employment opportunities for young people. School (teachers and council), students and the general community were involved in ensuring that each young person had a planned pathway to further education, training or employment.

One of the sessional project workers for the ELF program, Rhonda, was asked to investigate programs that would include the whole of the community and would address issues that were identified as possible causes of the low literacy levels in the Grade Prep children. A program called ‘Spread the Word’ came to Rhonda’s attention. This program was aimed at children aged 0-5, with objectives being to develop parent awareness for the need to communicate with children from the earliest age. The original ELF working party continued to coordinate the new ELF program, and Rhonda was employed as the ELF (II) project worker.

The CYAP program was developed in response to an acknowledgement of the importance of celebrating ‘community’ by staging events and providing opportunities for community networking. The objectives of this program were to

ascertain areas of interest from young people in the area, to implement a series of workshops, and to support and develop sustainability for the program.

Tensions began to develop between the program staff in the final year of the program’s funded period. The project leader became very concerned about the future of the program and the sustainability of individual programs. There was a general sense of running out of time. Project workers and the project leader had the additional stress of not knowing what would happen regarding their employment at the end of the funded period. BSV and CFK hoped to gain additional funding to continue their work in the community, but they were unlikely to know the outcome of this application before the end of the year.

Working parties were established for the ARC, CYAP and home visiting programs in 2003, and the advisory committee was eventually suspended. The advisory committee structure had never really worked. This was acknowledged in many evaluators meetings as well as evaluation reports. Evaluators made many recommendations to CFK to make changes to the structure, but it

continued operating in the same way until this point. The working party groups were much more satisfactory. By the end of this phase the ARC, CYAP, ELF (spread the word) and the home visiting programs were firmly entrenched as the most important components of the CFK project. Working party groups had been established for each program and project coordinators were appointed.

Sustainability was an important aspect of the program, and its prominence in discussions increased as the funding period drew to a close. Daniel believed that CFK staff should seek to implement strategies that would ensure the

sustainability of the individual program components. Daniel felt that attempting to sustain the whole of CFK was not appropriate. Some programs seemed to be more sustainable than others.

The Alexandra Secondary College were committed to the ARC program and had appointed a teacher as the coordinator of the program. This commitment at the school level ensured that the program would continue if CFK no longer received funding. The sustainability of the ELF (spread the word) program was similarly positive. The members of the working party were extremely committed to the program’s survival and it needed only a small amount of annual funding to

relationships with a number of agencies in the community, its overall mission was fuzzy and its sustainability post CFK funding looked shaky.

The most difficult program to sustain without CFK funding was the home visiting program. It was, financially, a costly program requiring a full time project worker and resources for volunteers and volunteer training. There had been a great deal of disagreement amongst CFK staff about the relevance of this program to CFK. Daniel had always felt that it was too reactive and not

sustainable, and therefore did not fit into a community development model of prevention. Meredith felt that a home visiting component had been part of the CFK vision from the beginning. She also felt that its benefits were two fold. She felt that the program assisted families when they were in need and that volunteers also gained something from their involvement with the program. However

Daniel believed that the work being done by Meredith was the responsibility of other agencies in the area that had been funded to provide these types of services.

Daniel and Meredith commenced discussions with the other agencies to find solutions to the problems in the area. One of the problems was the lack of office space for the other agencies that were based in other regional centers. When the office immediately next door to the Berry Street office became available for lease, Daniel sought permission from BSV to make enquiries. Agreements were made between CFK and the landlords of the two buildings, and the second building was leased. This provided extended office space for existing staff as well as for staff from other related agencies not located within the Alexandra district.

4.6.3 Phase Three: Toward Sustainability (October 2003 – April 2004)