End of year message
Undoubtedly, 2020 will be remembered as a year of major disruption, with the Covid 19 pandemic and its reach and impact across the world. While we are acutely aware of the effects of the pandemic unfolding around us, we at the Parenting Research Centre stand in awe of the way the child and family sector responded to this crisis, and are grateful and proud of the small part we have been able to play in supporting our community during these difficult times.
Together, the work we do has continued to help children thrive by driving new and better ways to support families in their parenting.
Despite the year, we have kept our connections strong and advanced our work in practice design, leading an approach to realising evidence-based practice, that is based on data-driven continuous practice improvement.
We stayed on track
We were able to transition seamlessly to remote working, and business continuity was ensured by the commitment and resilience of our staff, a strong positive culture and a spirit of teamwork that mitigated the risk of isolation and disconnection.
We supported the community
Not only were we able to keep our projects on track, we supported the community effort in dealing with the impact of the pandemic. raisingchildren.net.au was quick to publish quality, concise and helpful information for parents on caring for children during the pandemic.
Working with our service partners, we rapidly transitioned MyTime to online platforms, ensuring parents of children with disability and chronic illness had continued access to vital peer support available through this national program.
Together with a group of leading NGOs we set up the NGO Telepractice Venture, which collates telepractice tools and guidance for practitioners to help them offer consistent and high-quality remote parenting support to families.
Significant developments were also made in our approach to practice design. We had the privilege of working with community agencies in designing and implementing evidence-based practice frameworks. We further developed our design methodology, landed on a product name, and registered the trademark. PracticeWorks supports service delivery organisations to embed evidence-based practice.
We shaped public discourse on parenting
Throughout the year, we worked closely with various state government departments and participated in forums across Victoria and NSW advising on service responses to COVID-19.
We also continued to develop resources and provide implementation support aligned with the Reframing Parenting research. The intention is to further embed these findings among practitioners and organisations that work with children and families in order to facilitate conversations that result in better outcomes for children.
We will share what we learnt
We believe the most significant contribution we can make is to ensure that we capitalise on the valuable learnings from this year. We see significant potential in the permanent adoption of communication technologies to enhance face-to-face family services, while also utilising new insights and experience in our own operations.
In the spirit of taking care of each other and growing back stronger, we wish you a very restful and safe Festive season and hope you are as excited about the year ahead as we are.