Our impact
Family by Family harnesses the lived experience of Sharing Families to support Seeking Families to make change.
Since 2010 Family by Family has been delivered in South Australia, New South Wales and Stoke on Trent in the UK. Across these sites the program has supported over 2,100 families, and over 4,000 children, to make lasting change in their lives.
The peer to peer, strengths-based approach of Family by Family creates the enabling environment for families to build a deeper sense of self, and create opportunities to set and meet goals.
This process creates the confidence and self-agency in both Seeking and Sharing Families which has resulted in changes in:
- Family support
- Educational attainment
- Employment and career pathways
- Health and wellbeing for parents and children
- Social Capital
At its peak the program has supported families in breaking cycles of intergenerational disadvantage.
How we make a difference
Working across the continuum of family support, the program successfully creates change across a number of domains. Four external evaluations demonstrate the program’s efficacy and impact as:
Outcomes for our Seeking Families
- Increased confidence and self-agency, contributing to lasting change and for both Seeking and Sharing Families – creating new pathways to education & employment, and contributing to a reduction of strain on the welfare system.
- Increased parenting skills and confidence, supporting parents to better understand their children’s needs before crisis.
- Increased personal health and wellbeing, spanning health indicators including healthy eating and psychosocial health. Families report feeling better about themselves and their overall health – feeling positive about being able to continue their change journey.
- A reduction in social isolation, and an increase in social capital. Families consistently report increased connection to their local community and knowing where to go to get the help they need when they need it.
- Reduced Stress. Families report an increase in coping mechanisms from the daily stress of family life – often supported by the increased social and community connections the program facilitates.
- Reduced Child Protection notifications, through accessing family child protection data, families. A sustained reduction in child protection notifications at 6 and 12 month intervals was identified post engagement in the program indicating lasting behaviour change
Outcomes for our Sharing Families
Sharing Families are benefiting too:
- 60% exit for employment
- 40% exit to extend their education
Goals for change
We analysed over 1,100 Seeking Family goals. Below are the changes that Seeking Families identified as critical to thriving.
Committed to building an evidence base
We are committed to building home grown evidence so that we can continue to learn and share what works best for Australian families.
Join us and a growing group of Australia’s best academics, funders and providers to create research and evaluation approaches that help us to uncover what works best for families across Australia.
Designed for your community
Family by Family have an adaption methodology that is applied before the model begins implementation in a site. We ensure that the program actively engages families and builds local ownership.
Family by Family has successfully adapted the program to respond to cultural needs across Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia. Working in collaboration with representatives from communities, Family by Family works to ensure high levels of cultural competency and relevance.
Read our prospectus
Download our prospectus for more information about the model for scale in Australia and New Zealand.
Reports
Read our latest reports and evaluations for more information on our outcomes and learnings. Please get in touch if you’d like more information.
This report looks at some of the early stages of creating Family by Family. After co-designing solutions with families, we developed a scalable prototype to enable families to thrive.
This report shares our learning on how Family by Family can work best for Aboriginal Families and support the changes they want to make.
This is the first external evaluation of Family by Family and shares the key insights and learning from the program – detailing that within its short timeframe of implementation it is demonstrating change for families across the continuum of family support.
Implementing Family by Family
The Family by Family program is designed to be delivered through a network of providers so that more families across Australia and around the world can gain the skills and confidence to change their lives.