Communities in Control

For community services, COVID and the bushfires presented simultaneous challenges for how we respond and care for one another. We’ve seen an increase in demand for support across the community, reduction in funding for many community organisations, and social distancing forcing an urgent re-design in the way human services are delivered to people and communities who need our support.

The community sector plays an important part in ‘building back better’. CSnet is pleased to be supporting Our Community and the Communities in Control conference 2020 – we look forward to lively discussions about how we move forward, care for one another, and understand how we can work together to make a positive impact for people and the planet.

Connect with us at the conference –

1. Visit the conference reception
2. Select ‘Expo’ in the left sidebar
3. Choose CSnet from the list of booths
4. Send us a message in the ‘Booth’ chat, or
5. Chat with us by clicking ‘Share my audio and video’ in a video session
6. You can also have a one-on-one meeting with us by starting a Direct Message with Mandy Doon and ‘Inviting us to a video call’

A recent report⁽¹⁾ touched on key issues for community organisations and their workers in the face of these challenges –

Systems were not in place to support remote working –
70% reported they were not set up to support staff to work from home – nearly a third of organisations are still using either paper or MS Word / Excel as their primary system for capturing service and client information

Services struggled to support those in need –
71% of organisations had to implement significant changes to the way they delivered services or had to suspend services completely

Workers struggled with changes –
Nearly 50% of not-for-profit staff were feeling less than confident about using technology and information systems

Organisations don’t know if they made a difference –
Only 44% of organisations said that their primary system for recording service information allowed them to understand the impact of their services and outcomes.

How do we make the right choices as community services, talk compassionately about the most important things, and engage the community in decisions?

Know the difference you make

CSnet® is an easy-to-use and innovative web-based platform that supports human services to –

• collect and access information about people and services needed 24/7 from anywhere
• embed good service practice and support ongoing worker learning
• report on what is done in real time
• engage clients, groups and communities in measuring outcomes and make evidence-based decisions to adapt
• know the difference you make

Please make contact if you’d like to chat during the conference or follow up when you are ready to think about how you can build back better.

Social Impact Measurement Network Australia
(SIMNA) Webinar

In this September 2020 SIMNA webinar, Mandy (CSnet) is joined by Sarah Ryan, Education Manager at the Les Twentyman Foundation (LTF) – a small organisation that supports vulnerable young people at risk. LTF went live with CSnet in July 2020 during Victoria’s hard lockdown.

Together, we talk about the ‘how’ in measuring and managing outcomes in community services organisations:

1. How to understand what is possible as part of your everyday client information system while keeping an eye on the potential to measure your outcomes.
2. How to integrate outcomes measurement (and multiple outcomes frameworks) into everyday organisational learning.
3. How a strong partnership fit can support you to get started on your outcomes measurement journey.

Mandy shares key features in the CSnet client information system and demonstrates how technology can support practice to measure and manage outcomes emerging from your everyday work with clients and communities. Sarah discusses why a focus on outcomes is important to LTF, and shares some of the current internal challenges and team positives as LTF ‘gets going, gets better’, in partnership with CSnet.