Navigate Your Health: A Case Study of Organisational Learnings from an Integrated Care Pilot for Children and Young People in Care

Recruitment:

• Young people and foster carers consulted in role description development for Health Navigator roles;

• Young people with lived experience in care involved in recruitment shortlisting and interview panels for Health Navigator roles;

• Representatives from each partner agency involved in recruitment shortlisting and interviewing for Health Navigator roles.

• Central focus on what characteristics young people value in health workforce;

• Role modelling of co-design process to interview candidates;

• Mindfulness of the importance of incorporating the consumer’s voice in decision-making processes.

Consent and Information Sharing:

• Bespoke program consent forms developed;

• Routine referralprocesses and documentation processes agreed by both agencies;

• Ongoing quality improvements madethroughout the pilot where required to facilitate and sustain changemanagement activity.

• Iterative process to consult with both agencies’ legalservices teams, health and child safety staff to develop consentform;

• Mindfulness of incorporating relevant legislation from both Child Safetyand Health sectors;

• Consistent referral documentation collation and submission processesto initiate and complete a successful referral into the pilot.

Communication and Engagement:

• Information flyers co-branded with all agencies’ logos to showcase partnership, written in low health literacy language;

• Joint media and engagement opportunities to promote the pilot, joint presentations delivered in partnership by agency partners.

• Ability to raiseprofile of pilot across multiple stakeholder forums to socialise thebenefits to children and young people;

• Mindfulness of communicating thebenefits of the pilot to stakeholders with low literacy levelsto ensure their understanding and avoiding jargon;

• Public displays ofunity and commitment to improve.

Dedicated Project Management Resourcing:

• Strategicand Operational Governance Committees;

• Frontline culture and workforce change agentin Child Safety and Health systems;

• Active seeking of eligiblereferrals from across in-scope Child Safety Service Centres to maintaintraction in referring children and young people to the pilot; and

• a developmental evaluation of the pilot.

• Shared governance meant key decisions were consulted upon and discussed in open forums with relevant stakeholders providing subject matter expertise, and executive sponsors’ endorsement;

• Supported change amongst health providers to prioritise this vulnerable population for care above general triage ratings;

• Dedicated project resources were essential to sustain practice change and referral momentum in Child Safety;

• Developmental evaluation was essential to document and analyse the pilot’s outcomes and identify recommendations for ongoing improvements throughout the pilot.

Co-Investment:

• Project Management roles – in-kind;

• Health Navigators – jointly-funded.

• Project resourcing was essential to facilitate and navigate organisational complexitiesbetween partner agencies;

• Shared financial investment sustained each partner agency’sexecutive sponsorship and championing throughout the pilot;

• Set a precedentand role modelled successful approach for future opportunities to jointlyinvest in improvement initiatives.

• Child or young person entered care for the first time, during the pilot period 2018–2019 (prospective control group)

• Child or young person has already been residing in care prior to pilot commencing (retrospective comparison group)

• Identify as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin;

• Are under six years of age – to support earlier intervention;

• Are aged 15 years and over – to support earlier transition for adolescent and young adult services;

• Entered out-of-home care due to neglect concerns;

• Are in contact with the youth justice system;

• Are from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds;

• Have not seen a General Practitioner in the previous 6–12 months;

• Have unaddressed or poorly understood health or development concerns as recognised by Child Safety staff;

• Are not up to date with immunisations; and/or

• Are siblings of the above cohort.