Family by Family: Our award-winning peer-to-peer support model is now scaling across the world

Over the last decade, Family by Family has grown from a pilot program to a sustainable social venture – and is now available as a scalable framework ready to be adapted for any child and family sector partners wanting to see families thrive.


2 March 2021


The TACSI Team

In 2011, we received funding from the South Australian government to create Family by Family, a peer-to-peer early intervention support program designed to help reduce the number of families needing crisis services, and keep more young people out of the child protection system.


Co-designed with South Australian families for families, Family by Family helps families experiencing setbacks by engaging and training families who have been through tough times to help other families going through tough times. The program activates a largely untapped resource – the strengths and experiences of families that have ‘been there, done that’ – and at the same time builds community capability and strengthens connections. Over the last decade, Family by Family has supported over 2,000 Australian families to make lasting change in their lives.

A decade on, we’re proud to say that what started as a pilot program is now a sustainable and scalable social venture that’s spreading internationally

We’re thrilled to announce that from March 2021, we’ll be rolling-out an international pilot project of Family by Family. As well as shifting thae broader system of support towards strength-based family practice, we’ll also be using the international momentum to demonstrate how to build a new type of practice that’s family led, and how to create a different kind of workforce – one that’s a family workforce.

 
Illustration of a family

Family by Family is now available as a scalable framework designed to be thoughtfully but easily implemented by any community, organisation or government

From the very beginning, our ambition was to scale Family by Family nationally and internationally – and the package of support we’ve created means any organisation, community or government can successfully implement Family by Family in any context.

The package of support includes:

  • Practice and data delivery platform to help coaches link and connect families, set and rate goals, and create casenotes. It also discreetly and securely collects family data to tell an investment story.

  • Practice and data dashboard, which visually displays the story of your site, including family goals, demographics, and KPIs, and helps you to understand the unique risk and protective factors of your community and the families engaging in the program at an aggregated level.

  • Learning and capability building platform, a unique learning experience for staff who are trained to deliver in a family led way. It guides you through set up, localisation, working with families, theory and practice relevant to family led delivery. Each module provides you with tools of the trade and stories from the real world so you can directly hear from staff and families who have adapted and delivered the model before.

  • Knowledge sharing and evidence building, which includes theory bases, literature reviews, publications and access to evaluations and impact analysis across the implementation network of the Family by Family globally.

 
  • Collateral and branding pack, purpose-built suite of assets that are designed for optimum family engagement, and to support your organisation’s quick and responsive delivery of the program.

  • Quality and standards framework, Family by Family’s own inbuilt quality system. This allows you to assess your work against the best standards of practice. It also provides a platform to include staff and families in feedback loops and direct teams towards ongoing continuous improvement for the life of the program. The standards will also be jointly reviewed in order to provide sites with new and fresh ways to do their best work for families, ensuring family led practice remains central to the delivery of the model.

  • Coaching – no matter where you are on your journey of delivering Family by Family, support will be available to provide context specific coaching around challenges, barriers and nuanced differences at any stage of scoping, adaptation and implementation.

Family by Family has been specifically designed to create wide-reaching and sustainable social change

With just one professional for every 100 children, it’s extremely cost-effective. The program has an unprecedented cost benefit ratio of 1:7; a huge saving for governments in keeping children out of State care and other child protection and crisis services.

Most importantly, families remain at the centre

The families who helped design Family by Family are here to help you – and they’re so excited to see this program grow. They believe it can help others in the same way it helped them, and they’re here to help in any way they can: interviewing staff, providing perspectives from families through attending coaching sessions, engaging in and delivering training and providing you with video testimonials.

Learn more about Family by Family Meet our new Family by Family 'Quality Friends'
Image 3: Sharing Families and Seeking Families come together to learn from each other, listen, and set goals for the future

If you’re interested in bringing Family to Family to your community, send us a message, or contact Vita Maiorano, TACSI’s Director of Scaling Innovations, at vita.maiorano@tacsi.org.au or on 0415 764 451.

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