Improving and growing at every opportunity
It is crucial that we continually evolve, improve and grow to meet the ever-changing needs of the communities we support. It’s this commitment to continually improve that ensures our service offering is the best it can be for those who use our services and for the people of Bethany who deliver our programs. Below is an update of key initiatives and projects which have been rolled out across the organisation in line with this key strategic objective.
Our people
Our people sit at the core of our organisation. As such, we are committed to continuously enhancing the employee experience wherever possible to ensure all Bethany employees feel valued, recognised and rewarded.
Our People Highlights
At Bethany, we celebrate diversity and inclusion. We embrace a connected organisation which enables everyone to feel included, connected and safe. Following the appointment of the Inclusion and Diversity Advisor at the end of 2021, Bethany has become a Diversity Council of Australia member and joined the Geelong Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Community of Practice. Pleasingly, employee-led working groups that span Cultural Diversity, Disability Inclusion, Rainbow, and Bethany’s second Reconciliation Action Plan have continued to develop.
During 2022, we undertook our second annual Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Staff Survey. The results of the survey have helped us understand the diverse identities that make up the Bethany workforce and better understand what we do well and where we can improve. The survey data has helped inform the development of Bethany’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion strategy which we look forward to launching in 2023.
We were thrilled to achieve Rainbow Tick re-accreditation in October 2022. The Rainbow Tick is a quality framework that helps Bethany show that we are safe, inclusive and affirming services and employers for the LGBTIQA+ community.
Recognising and rewarding achievement and high performance is integral to improving the workplace experience for our people. In 2022, Bethany launched its new Recognition and Reward program which celebrates the achievements of staff across a range of categories. It acknowledges and honours positive contribution to a team, the agency, or the community.
Prioritising employee experience was evidenced in Bethany’s selection in the Sexual Assault, Family Violence and Prevention Health, Safety and Wellbeing Pilot Program facilitated by the Department for Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH). This initiative enabled staff who work within our family violence programs to work with the Centre for Workforce Excellence and gain access to a raft of beneficial wellbeing resources.
In late 2021, Bethany was selected by The Department of Education, Skills and Employment to participate in an exciting initiative called Career Revive. This initiative, facilitated by KPMG was designed to address systemic barriers preventing skilled women from returning to the workforce following a career break.
As part of this initiative, Bethany had the opportunity to participate in a series of workshops to co-design our own program targeted at recruiting and retaining women returning to work following a career break.
In June 2022, Bethany became one of only 36 business Australia wide to complete the program and we were awarded a silver badge for the development of a Supported Returner Program and the successful implementation of several other actions to increase attraction, recruitment and retention of women returning to work.
Setting the benchmark of Community Service excellence
We are committed to continuous improvement and strive to set the benchmark of Community Service excellence. To deliver on this objective and achieve ongoing growth as an organisation, we have put in place several new strategic initiatives and frameworks.
Our Commitment to Continuous Improvement Highlights
Bethany’s Quality Governance Framework is designed to ensure we deliver high quality services to individuals and children. Quality Governance provides a framework to define our vision of quality service provision. It enables systems of governance to support staff, as well as monitoring and evaluating services through data collection, analysis, benchmarking and applying continuous improvement.
In March 2022, Bethany was successful in achieving recertification against the Human Services Standards. The Human Services Standards represent a single set of service quality standards for human services funded organisations. Standards, monitoring and the independent review processes help ensure Bethany provides quality services that deliver positive outcomes for our community.
Our proactive approach to quality improvement and management has also seen us improve Bethany’s incident and complaint management system. In doing so, it has given us the opportunity to establish risk profiles, monitor emerging risks and/or changes in risk ratings and progress with risk treatments.
At our kindergartens, we continued to ensure that the early childhood education programs we provide are safe, effective, individualised and connected. The 2020 ACECQA National Performance Report for Assessments and Ratings indicates that 80% of services in Australia are assessed as meeting or above the National Standards. In comparison, BKS has 100% of services at meeting or above.
The national average for services rated at exceeding the National Standards overall is 30%, while in comparison, BKS has 66% of services with an exceeding rating.
In late 2021, the Bethany Board of Directors approved a new strategic investment initiative; an Evidence Informed and Innovation Strategy. This ambitious strategy is in partnership with The Centre for Evidence and Implementation (CEI) and aims to embed evidence informed practice in most areas of service delivery within Bethany.
An evidence informed practice framework strives to develop an Integrated, Common Practice Approach which has been shown to improve service user outcomes. This strategy is being rolled out over three years using implementation science to support three key components: Evidence in Practice, Active Monitoring and Evaluation for Impact, and Learning Culture and Climate.
The Common Practice Approach will build the capability of practitioners and allow them to add evidence-informed techniques to their current way of working.
Phase one was completed from December 2021 to June 2022 and the results of this phase will be further developed into a framework comprising training, coaching and implementation support for the project’s second phase. CEI is also supporting Bethany with the development of an internal evaluation framework so the impact of the strategy can be evaluated. This is crucial to ensure we’re promoting a culture of continuous learning and quality improvement – both key ingredients for an innovative leader in the sector.
MARAM Maturity
Bethany was asked to participate in the Family Violence Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Management Maturity Model (MMM) Project as a sector champion in January 2022. Together with seven other organisations, Bethany commenced working with the Family Safety Victoria Design & Policy team in May 2022. The MARAM framework ensures that services are effectively identifying and managing family violence risk.
The overall objective of the MMM is to create a shared model to support the diverse range of prescribed organisations across the Victorian sector landscape, in sustaining successful alignment with the MARAM framework. In doing so, it also provides a platform for government to build a better understanding of how organisations are progressing with their alignment to MARAM. Bethany was recognised as one of the leaders in MARAM alignment across the community sectors.
The SRS implementation is a strategic project to roll out an agency-wide client management system. Having a single client database promotes collaborative working between programs and provides practitioners with the information they need to offer a wrap-around support experience which can be tailored to service user needs.
The focus of the SRS project during 2022 was to bring the programs funded by the Department of Social Services onto the system. These included our Therapeutic programs (FARS, SCASP), Children’s Contact Services (CCS, FES) and Emergency Relief. Pleasingly, 2022 also saw the completion of the design phase for our Child & Family Services on SRS. The system is currently being built for us and we look forward to going live in May 23.
The people we support
Our reason for being, without hesitation, is supporting those in the community who need it most. As such, the first of six priorities in Bethany’s 2020-25 Strategy is to “ensure the voices of service users are at the center of all we do.”
Ensuring the voices of service users are are at the center of all we do
To deliver on this objective it’s critical we regularly evaluate the efficiency, success and value of the services we offer. This is done through regularly gathering feedback from the people we support to gain insights and feedback which informs our service design and delivery moving forward.
We are dedicated to continuous improvement and commentary from those who are directly impacted by what we do is critical to ensure we’re meeting the ever-changing needs of the community we serve.
