Relationship Building and Networking

Anthony felt that strengthening existing relationships was vital to the intervention’s sustainability.

“the program can’t become complacent about keeping on doing a lot of intensive work around the network and the relationships … there is always room for improvement in strengthening those relationships, but I just know from other projects that if you begin to sort of take those networks and those relationships for granted you actually then see things unravel quite quickly as well, because

5.2.4.5 The Staff

Anthony understood the importance of the staff in all of these processes. “the sustainability … of keeping those sorts of contacts and

links … and networking going inevitably … comes built around key staff and key personalities, even though we’d like to think that programs can survive and should survive regardless of who is in those roles, I think it would be fair to say that a lot of the networking for example depends on the style and techniques and character and personality of say of Daniel and the ways that he can link with people” Anthony

Anthony stressed the importance of the one to one relationships and the continuity of key staff members.

“people may be OK with the program, but I’m a great believer that all programs at the end of the day rely on a lot of the one to one, I trust that person type relationship” Anthony

“how they keep a lot of those or that networking and some of that relationship building going in the long run and sustainability probably does also mean continuity of key staff members of the project, because if you’re chopping and changing staff members you’re always losing a lot of time and a lot of knowledge of that person” Anthony “you might start to lose program staff because they are not too sure about their own work futures and they obviously have to look out for their own work opportunities and all of that stuff is out there as well” Anthony

5.2.4 Exploring the Interview Themes

As can be seen from the interview data there were many different perspectives on similar issues amongst the four participants. The following section reviews the main themes, which appeared in multiple interviews, and explores their different perspectives.

5.2.4.1 Sustainability

Although a phase in and of itself, the sustainability of the intervention should be considered from initial planning and continue through the

sustainability was included within the literature review and was highlighted by all of the participants as being a component of the intervention that must be constantly considered during implementation.

Of particular interest was the diversity in participant’s views on

sustainability and how it could be achieved. Daniel was idealistic in his idea of sustainability, believing community ownership of the intervention or of

individual program components was the key to sustainability. Deidre’s view was that the aim should be for the program components to be sustained by the

community, but that it should be recognized that there may need to be an alternative source of funding if program components were not self-sustained by the end of the initial funded period.

“developing sustainability …(and) how you manage that … if your resourcing does fall in a heap …(after) three years …(there needs to be) some way that somebody else, whether it’s another organization or a community group … is able to take it on board … to make it sustainable” Deidre

Anthony also recognized the need for consideration of alternative funding. However, while Deidre felt that alternative funding needed to be considered as a contingency plan if community ownership did not appear to be likely, Anthony expressed doubt that community ownership would be possible in a three year period.

“I guess we’d be fooling ourselves if we think that after the three years … the program will be owned by the community and will be self sustained, I don’t think that will be the case, it will just collapse pretty quickly, so it is partially a funding issue, … who is that from and is it going to be ongoing …(or will it) have this sort of ongoing …pilot program kind of feel about it” Anthony

Meredith raised another possibility for the sustainability of program components. In her desire to ensure that community needs were met she thought CFK should explore the idea of allowing another group to continue the work started by CFK so that the community’s needs would be met.

“even though we set out to do it one particular way we need to be adaptable to deliver something else or to getting other

Contained in the initial project proposal (Berry Street Victoria, 2000, October) was a section on sustainability. Sustainability in this document was viewed as the continuation of the intervention and/or program components “despite either the loss of or change in some structural components” (Berry Street Victoria, 2000, October, p.35)

5.2.4.2 Time

An issue that the participants saw as a potential barrier to the sustainability of the intervention was time. Anthony expressed concern that, particularly in a rural context, it was unlikely that the community would own and sustain the intervention within the three year period.

“I guess to be accepted within a rural community context we’re probably talking a matter of years rather than months” Anthony

Meredith felt that the community were reluctant to be involved because the funding was for a finite period of time.

“because it is only three years, a lot of people haven’t got on board because they think it is a limited time … some people have said well you’re only going to be here for three years, what’s going to happen afterwards?” Meredith

Deirdre also expressed concern about the lack of time that the program was to receive funding. She had particular concerns about community development being a slow process and the need for more time. Daniel did not mention time in any way in his interview. Anthony felt that program staff needed to be pragmatic in their expectations of what the intervention could achieve in the given time frame.

“the program has to be hard nosed and pragmatic about what it can achieve in the three years and not to have too high expectations and to actually realize that things might actually go back a little bit for a whole host of other

reasons out of control of the actual program, but to hang in there” Anthony

These interviews took place at around the half way mark of the program. It was possible that participants were very aware of the fact that time was running out and this might explain why time was such a major issue for most participants.

“The whole typical life cycle … of any project and activity … the program …(should) realize that it may be within the next six to 12 months that people are mindful they’re coming to the end of the pilot, they’ve got perhaps another 12 months to go” Anthony

5.2.4.3 Community Participation

The literature discusses the importance of collaboration and participation of the program’s stakeholders. Pancer and Cameron (1994) found that residents involved in the Better Beginnings, Better Futures project developed a sense of community and that their self-confidence, self-esteem, social contact, support, skills and knowledge were enhanced. They also revealed that communities where residents participated were able to come together and take action for other

needed services not related to the project.

Community participation in decision making is an important component of a good and sustainable program. Participation in decision making at the

community level in particular is recommended. Durlak and Ferrari (1998)

examined the implementation of several prevention interventions and determined that collaboration with all stakeholders increased the commitment of those involved. St Pierre and Kaltreider (2001) suggested that in the implementation of an after-school substance abuse prevention program it was not only important to seek input from stakeholders at all three stages of the intervention, but also to put into practice the suggestions they provided. Seeing their ideas used gave them a sense of ownership over the intervention, ensuring participation and

sustainability.

There was quite a bit of discussion in the interviews about these issues and participants’ views were quite varied. As previously mentioned Meredith’s desire to meet the community’s needs was central to her idea of a successful

intervention. She felt that listening to the community, treating all community members as equal and giving the community the programs that they asked for

was vital. She also recognized the importance of involving the community, or at least the advisory committee, in the decision making process, but admitted that this did slow the process down.

“we need to bring it (decisions) back to the advisory and check that it’s OK, but that can also be a slow process” Meredith

Daniel and Deirdre had quite a different view from Meredith on the community’s participation in decision making. Both felt that while it was important to communicate with the community and keep them informed with regular updates, that management and staff were better placed to make the decisions.

“I always say, jokingly, democracy is fine as long as I’m the dictator, there has to be somebody who is leading the

process and there is some point where decisions have to be made by a few rather than waiting for the whole town or the whole whatever to come on board” Deidre

The advisory committee meetings, facilitated by Daniel and Deidre, were functioning in this way.

“I just find that the meetings that I have been to, more often than not it’s a session where Deidre and Daniel are sort of just telling the committee what they’re doing, it’s purely a reporting back type process” Anthony

Anthony had an interesting insight into the intervention and the issues of decision making and community ownership.

“I think the governance decision making around programs like this is quite important because regardless if there is long term funding or not … one of the desired outcomes for the program is this whole thing around community

ownership and decision making, I suppose that needs to be clear about what that really looks like, it’s really tempting for programs, and I’ve seen this in other programs, how can I put this nicely, they believe their own rhetoric sometimes … if the program is quite serious about community ownership being part of the program in the fuller sense rather than being part of the rhetoric, then giving some thought about what does that look like now … just trying to flesh out that issue of participation and

decision making and to try to make that a bit more real than the level of the rhetoric” Anthony

The initial project proposal’s section on stakeholder participation stated that “the need for the broader community to feel a sense of investment is essential” (Berry Street Victoria, 2000, October, p. 26). However it also stated that there should not be an assumption that people necessarily want to be involved. It suggested opportunities should be provided to allow community members to be involved in the capacity that suits them best.

5.2.4.4 Relationship Building and Networking

Galano et al. (2001) found that the partnerships that were formed between the program and community institutions helped gather widespread public support for the program. Daniel and Deidre both saw relationship building and

networking as very important to program success, however they had very clear views about who the relationship building and networking should be with.

“picking the right people in the community to collaborate with and a little bit of knowledge about how the local politics work can be very, very helpful” Daniel

Meredith felt that some people in the community were not being heard in the program planning discussion even though they were users of the programs.

“everyone has a right to be heard regardless of their educational ability” Meredith

Anthony saw the relationship building and networking as necessarily a continuous ongoing process that would be dependent on individual program staff.