Child and Family Health Service Proposed Model of Care

About

This engagement has now closed

Tell us your feedback on the Child and Family Health Service Proposed Model of Care.

What is being decided?

The Child and Family Health Service (CaFHS) provides a range of child development services for families with young children. Read more about CaFHS services for children and families here.

CaFHS has recently reviewed how it works to make sure that the services it provides are delivered in a way that best meets the needs of South Australian families.

This review has considered the latest available data and other evidence about children in the early years and included significant consultation with staff and other key partners from the early childhood system.

CaFHS has now developed a proposed model of care which describes a new way of working and a new way of providing services for families. CaFHS is now seeking feedback on this model.

How can your input influence the decision?

Community input will help guide development of a final model of care that will be adopted by CaFHS. This input, along with the evidence, will help to shape how services are delivered and ensure that every child has the best opportunity to develop a strong foundation for ongoing health and development throughout their childhood and into adult life.

• Download the CaFHS Proposed Model of Care Paper(PDF 3.3MB)
• Download the CaFHS Proposed Model of Care - Key Differences document (PDF 160KB)

Get involved

You can be a part of the conversation by:

• completing the survey
• joining the online discussion
• sending in a submission via cafhsfeedback@sa.gov.au or Proposed Model of Care - Feedback, Child and Family Health Service, 295 South Terrace, Adelaide SA 5000.

Consultation closes Friday 15 September 2015.

A final CaFHS Model of Care will be released to the community once the feedback has been considered.

Backgound

CaFHS delivers a range of early childhood development services for children and families across the state. This includes responding to 20,000 births each year of which around 900 are to Aboriginal families.

Extensive consultation was undertaken in mid-2016 to seek feedback on a proposed enhanced service delivery framework.

Through this consultation CaFHS has identified that there are opportunities for it to improve the way it provides services with a particular focus on the most vulnerable and to strengthen its ability to assist and support all children and families into the future.

The feedback from this consultation and other data has informed the next stage of the review process – a proposed model of care. This model will be the basis to inform how CaFHS provides services into the future, ensuring they are contemporary, evidence-based, child-focused, culturally responsive and effective. This will help to better position CaFHS to provide health and development services and to improve outcomes for children in these areas.

Other key factors reinforced the importance of CaFHS undertaking this service delivery review. They include:

• ever-expanding research on the importance of early life for continuing health and development
• new, local evidence regarding those factors which contribute to vulnerability within families and how this increases challenges to supporting child health and development
• recent data which indicates that the proportion of children experiencing increased levels of adversity, poor development and poor academic outcomes has remained stable over the past decade
• an understanding that innovative approaches are required to improve health and development outcomes for children, including the need to integrate early childhood services across health, education and social welfare
• the need to develop an integrated family support service approach with the Government's Children’s Centres and the emerging Child and Family Assessment and Referral Networks.