Computer-assisted feedback - Hearing the voices of children and young people in care
The Department for Child Protection and Family Support
Children and young people in care benefit from a user-friendly, computer-assisted program to help them have a say in decisions that affect their lives and the services provided for them.
The Department for Child Protection and Family Support has parental responsibility for some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children and young people in Western Australia. For a variety of reasons, children and young people in care may find it harder than most to speak up and say what they want or to complain.
Customer focus
The Department understands the importance of participation by children and young people in care. At the individual level meaningful participation leads to better outcomes, while collective feedback and advice is critical for the development of effective and relevant services.
In addition to employing an Advocate for Children in Care, the Department has introduced a computer-assisted program to help them have a say in decisions that affect their lives and the services provided for them.
Improving visibility, accessibility and responsiveness
In 2010 the Department was the first in Australia to adopt audio-computer-assisted self-interviewing (ACASI) to engage children and young people in care in planning for themselves, and in providing group feedback on service effectiveness and improvement.
The methodology was established world-wide as a social research tool, and had been positively evaluated for collecting reliable and candid information about sensitive topics, especially from reluctant or hard-to-reach respondents.
ACASI employs the computer as a non-judgemental and non-threatening medium, creating a ‘private’ environment in which users feel able to disclose thoughts and information they might not otherwise be able or willing to share.
Annual planning
In WA, ACASI is used as the first step in the annual care planning process for individual children and young people in care aged five years and over, and is followed up by a one-to-one conversation with the regular child protection worker where responses are explored and reflected upon, and proposals generated for action or solution.
These processes are governed by the usual confidentiality provisions, and allow the views, experiences and wishes of the child or young person to be accurately captured and given due weight in the planning process.
Questionnaires
ACASI is delivered to children and young people in care via a web-based software program that offers age-related questionnaires covering participation as well as safety, care arrangements, health, education, social and family relationships, recreation and leisure, emotions and behaviour, identity and culture, and legal and financial aspects.
Two formats cater for individual literacy needs and preferences: the first uses interactive avatars, colourful graphics and speech to guide the user through the questionnaire, and the second uses a simple survey format. Both formats offer a range of response options and a notepad for free type entries. The interactive version is completed on dedicated laptops, with facilitator support, while the survey version can be completed alone on private devices, including laptops, tablets and mobile phones.
Responses, uploaded to a secure web database, are instantly accessible to child protection workers.
Reports
The software delivers text-based reports for individual care-planning, with an option to display an individual’s previous responses. At the same time, the data is aggregated with those of other respondents to create a range of management reports containing collective feedback.
Cohorts of respondents can be selected, for example, groups of a certain age, ethnic background, placement type, or geographical location. Management reports provide critical, unmediated, real-time feedback from children and young people in care for use in service monitoring, planning and improvement. The anonymous data can be shared with service partners.
The tool has created more user-friendly opportunities for WA’s children and young people in care to have a say in their own planning, and to give feedback as a group about what works and what needs to be improved. For the first time, the Department has access to the unmediated views, wishes and feedback of their most important service users, and the capacity to monitor and target service improvement activities.
Developing the strategies
WA’s ACASI tool was created following extensive consultation between the Advocate and key stakeholders, including children and young people in care and youth advisory group, Create’v Voyce. The software was developed by The Viewpoint Organisation, which had extensive experience with ACASI overseas.
The process was piloted in one metropolitan and one country district during 2010, and the experiences and feedback of participants shaped the final package.
Costs were minimised by adapting decommissioned laptops. Each district nominated a practice leader or champion for the program, and staff electronic systems mentors provided support.
Training
Training sessions for staff, foster carers and residential carers used video conferencing and featured pilot participants and members of Create’v Voyce, as well as The Advocate, senior staff and the chief executive.
A new chapter in the Department’s practice guide, The Casework Practice Manual, directed staff that all children and young people in care over the age of five years must be invited to use Viewpoint ACASI as the first step in their care-planning process, and that a follow up discussion must occur with the relevant child protection worker to build upon the responses.
The guide included timelines and provisions for consent and confidentiality, and contained a range of resources including a flowchart, task outlines for staff, a factsheet for carers, and a step-by-step software user guide.
Momentum was created and maintained from the executive committee downwards, and regular articles and usage reports were featured on the start-up screen on the Department’s intranet site. A draw prize was made available for participating children and young people, and the Advocate promoted the tool to staff.
Continual improvement
Viewpoint ACASI is designed to elicit and organise feedback from children and young people in care so that services can be continually improved. To evaluate the effectiveness of service improvement or intervention strategies, the views and experiences of individuals and groups can be compared over time. Managers can easily access this information locally or State-wide and respond accordingly.
In relation to the software itself, Viewpoint ACASI questionnaires contain optional questions for children and young people about their experiences when using it. To date, their feedback has been consistently positive, indicating that they find the program easy to use, the questions relevant and not onerous, and that they are willing to use it again. Any suggestions for change can be made in the free-type notepad section.
The software is constantly evolving, and new access points have been added since the initial rollout making it more accessible.