Make a Plan for Change
Form a partnership around a shared vision and a common goal, then decide how you will work together to make it happen. Identify community priorities, plan for measuring impact, and bring together the people, information, data, and resources you need to start taking action.
Collaboration for Collective Impact
Transforming our justice systems requires whole communities to come together for change, led by First Nations people. Justice Reinvestment uses Collective Impact approaches to form partnerships around a shared vision and bring everyone together to work towards a common agenda.
Why Collaboration is essential for Justice Reinvestment
When you’re dealing with big system challenges – like in our justice system - it often feels impossible for any particular organisation or individual to make a difference. This is when it’s important for everyone in a community to come together and collectively create the change that is needed. While it’s essential that Aboriginal communities are leading this change, it’s important they’re not left to drive it alone. Everyone has a part to play to address the complex issues which are behind the ongoing involvement of community members in the justice system.
Having a dedicated focus on collaboration ensures that you can get everyone in the community involved: from local elders, different family groups, service providers, local government, schools, police, other government agencies, local businesses and anyone else. Together, you can unpack your vision for your community, and what is stopping that from being a reality. Think about local strengths and assets, and unpack local challenges and potential solutions.
About Collective Impact
Collective Impact is a framework for collaboration, which helps communities address complex social issues which are beyond the capacity of any organisation to address acting alone. Key to collective impact is the formation of a cohesive partnership, which is united by a shared vision of transformation for the local community.
Collective impact talks about five key conditions:
You can find out more about Collective Impact through some of the links in the resources section.
Establishing Leadership & Governance for a JR Site
Establishing how your Justice Reinvestment site will be governed and led by local community is an important milestone in your JR journey. It’s a moment which signals your collective commitment to embracing a Justice Reinvestment approach, and sets you up to collaborate towards your shared goals over the long term, with First Nations community taking the lead.
It’s important that community are central to the design the leadership and governance of a Justice Reinvestment Site. You don’t need to be restricted to traditional, western and/or corporate-orientated structures – you can be creative and design something that will work best in your community. There are a number of examples of different leadership structures available in our resources section, to get you started on thinking what will work best for you. Here are some things you might want to consider as part of this process:
Once you’ve decided how the leadership of your Justice Reinvestment Site will work, it’s a good idea to draw up a governance structure or similar to help show how decisions are made. It can also be a good time to set up the foundations of how these groups might work in documents such as a Terms of Reference, Governance Document, Partnership Agreement or similar. Some examples for what these might look like can be found in our resources.
The Importance of the Backbone Organisation
A backbone organisation is a dedicated team (or person) who’s role is to ensure that the collaborative work of the Justice Reinvestment site ticks along. They play an important role in facilitating community conversations and collaboration, following up on projects between meetings, maintaining relationships, managing administration, and building momentum.
While it is possible to have a Justice Reinvestment Site without one, SRWA always recommends a backbone organisation.
The backbone organisation can be set up independently, or hosted within an existing organisation, however it’s important it has dedicated resources and its own identity to help emphasise the whole-of-community ownership of Justice Reinvestment.
Data to Inform JR
Data can sound complicated, but really it is just information which you use to tell a story. What we can learn from data is important to justice reinvestment, as it helps bring people together, and find the best ways to make change.
Importance of Data and Information
In Justice Reinvestment, data helps you communicate a need for change, understand a situation, identify priority areas, track progress, learn what works and increase accountability. Using data keeps us on track, and focusing on making a meaningful difference, which is why being data informed is a key principle of Justice Reinvestment.
It’s important to remember that data is not just numbers or statistics. Data is any information which is used to tell a story. This includes:
Community Data – information which you collect about your community’s experiences such as:
Stories, quotes, or interviews
Surveys designed and delivered by your community
Minutes or notes from a community meeting
Pictures, artwork, videos, dances or other ways of telling stories
Administrative Data – Information collected by government or other organisations, such as:
Population statistics
Records of school attendance, police statistics, health services etc.
Information on funding of programs or infrastructure in a community
Information throughout the JR Journey
The types of information you need and what you use it for will change at different stages of your justice reinvestment journey. Here are some examples of what might be useful at different stages.
Data and Service Mapping
Lots of communities find that Data and Service Mapping is a useful tool to get people talking about and committed to justice reinvestment, during the yarning stage. Plus, it’s useful when you start putting together your plan for change too.
Data mapping is a process of collating lots of different pieces of information from different areas, and bringing it all together in a visual way to help explain what is happening in a community. This is a useful way to learn more about what’s happening in your community, and to present this information in an easy to understand format so that everyone in the community can be involved in the conversation about what is happening and what could be done better. Service Mapping involves collecting information on what services and programs are operating in your community, to help identify gaps in services and opportunities for better collaboration and coordination.
Usually it’s best to start with publicly available data, and then if you need more information on a particular area that’s interesting or a priority for the community you can consider approaching government departments for more detailed statistics, or conducting community surveys or storytelling. Some recommendation on sources of data can be found in the tools & resources section below.
In data mapping, you might want to include information on:
Example: Partial snapshot of the Olabug Doogethu Prospectus
Population & Diversity
Early Childhood
Health & Wellbeing
Child Safety, Street Presence & Youth Activities
Education, Training & Employment
Income, Housing & Food Security
Crime, Police, Courts and Prisons
In service mapping, you might want to include information on:
Types of services (i.e. mental health, youth engagement,
Operating times
Service capacity & waiting lists
Funding amounts and sources
Staffing levels
You might want to organise this information by:
Where things happen in the community
Different ages across the lifespan
Differences between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal community members
Once you have the information and have identified what is most relevant and interesting, you should display it in visual way, using infographics or similar. We have some templates for collecting information and examples of different ways to present it available on our resources page.
Using Community Data as a Conversation Starter
Data Mapping is a useful tool to help start conversations with community members about justice reinvestment. This is why it’s especially useful to get the information you collect visualised in an easy to understand way.
Here are some questions and conversation starters you can use when discussing data:
Helpful Tools and Resources
Australian Law Reform Commission, Pathways to Justice Inquiry
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services
Sources of Publicly Available Data
Productivity Commission Annual Review of Government Services (ROGS)
Developing Your Community Justice Reinvestment Plan
Each community working on Justice Reinvestment develops their own Community JR Plan which reflects their unique circumstances and aspirations. This stage is the perfect opportunity to focus efforts on where you can create the most change, and start preparing to measure your impact.
Developing a Community-Led Plan
During the community conversations you’ve held, and the formation of the collaboration driving your JR site, you will have started to get an idea about your community’s vision and priorities. This is the opportunity to bring all these insights together, and have a focused conversation about how to achieve this vision in your community.
It’s important that everyone who is a part of the Justice Reinvestment site, and the broader local community, have an opportunity to contribute to the development of the Community JR Plan. This ensures the plan focuses on what matters most, and helps to build a sense of collective ownership that supports people to contribute to being part of making change.
A great way to do this can be to hold a community forum or workshop as part of the development of the Community JR Plan. Or you might want to create a number of different opportunities for people to contribute - perhaps as a part of other community events or meetings that are happening. At this workshop, you can focus on a number of different aspects below. This is a great opportunity to make use of tools and activities from co-design, asset-based community development, and human-centred design – see some ideas in the resources section.
Starting with the Shared Vision
If you haven’t already developed and articulated a shared vision for your community during the establishment of your collaborative leadership structures, now is the perfect time. Your shared vision should succinctly articulate what you want to see for your community. Here are some examples:
A unified and empowered community shaping and determining its own future
To see our children happy, healthy and thriving now and for generations to come
Growing them up safe, smart, and strong
Use feedback from the community conversations to shape up the potential key parts of the vision. Then workshop it with your leadership group/s and community members to make sure it reflects what matters most to the community. If it is too hard to fit everything into one vision statement, you might also want to develop some goals or objectives that feed into your vision.
Prioritising Projects and Activities
Once you have decided on your vision, it is also a good time to identify the key priority areas which your Justice Reinvestment will focus its efforts on to begin with. Often communities’ perspectives on this will have come up through discussion of the vision, but it’s worth also discussing specifically to ensure all ideas are considered.
Usually 2 – 5 priority projects is plenty for a JR site to focus on. Remember that you need to make sure you have the resources to support these in the backbone team, community & partners, and funding or other contributions. It’s often smarter to address a few priorities well, rather then spread your resources to thinly over a wide range of issues.
It can also be useful for a JR site to ensure the mix of different priority projects works well together, and make sense for the current situation in your community. Consider:
Different strategies to address priorities
There are lots of different ways to achieve JR goals and respond to different local needs. Consider which type of approach works best for the issues you’re addressing, as well as the skills and resources you have available. Options include:
Coordination & Local System Change – This is where service providers and/or government agencies work together to improve the way that existing programs or systems work, informed by the local communities. Examples might include:
Co-Designing culturally appropriate protocols for service delivery
Coordaining youth engagement programs across providers, to ensure options available at key days/times, and to share staff and resources
Advocacy for Systemic Change – Some changes are too big to be developed and enacted at a local level. In these instances, the Justice Reinvestment Site can use advocacy strategies to influence decision makers to make the change the community wants to see. Examples might include:
Campaigning for an on-country alternative to youth detention in the region so that young people are closer to community & Country
Advocating to change mandatory suspension policies in local schools
Programmatic Responses – Where there is a specific gap in services, the community can co-design a program to address the priority issue. For example:
Co-Designing and implementing a education-reengagement program
A community-led throughcare program with case management and mentoring for community members exiting prison and youth detention
Awareness Raising and other projects- Some priorities involve changing community attitudes, raising awareness, or other project-type responses. For example:
A media & social media blitz to tell positive stories about local young people to change community attitudes
Developing an interactive local services directory
How long it will take for your community to see the impacts of your projects
It’s easier to maintain collaboration and momentum for a new way of working when community can see the impact a new approach is having. But also, lots of change in this space takes time! Consider including a mix of:
Quick Wins & Circuit Breakers – These are projects that can quickly made a difference. They’re a great way to bring people in, and practice working together with community in the lead. It’s also a great opportunity to do something visible that the wider community can be aware of
Long-Slogs with Big Impact – These are projects that might take a few years to come to fruition, and possibly even longer to start impacting outcomes on the ground of the community. They’re important, because these big, long-term changes are essential when working with the complex issues that need to eb addressed to make our communities safer and stronger.
Medium-Term projects – Things that bit somewhere in-between!
Different points when change can be made
Prevention – such as supporting families basic needs, early childhood, healthcare, prosocial activities, cultural connection and community cohesion
Early Intervention & Responsive Support- such as alternative education, mental health supports, alcohol and other drug treatment, disability screening and supports, case management, local service collaboration & information sharing
Diversion – such as youth workers as first responders, cultural healing, intensive support, culturally responsive services, improving police diversion
Improving Justice Responses – such as community/neighbourhood justice centres, Aboriginal-led courts and decision making, restorative justice programs, sentencing alternatives, bail supports, changes to mandatory sentencing
Reintegration – such as throughcare supports, training opportunities for people leaving prison, community-based alternatives to detention
Setting Up for Impact Measurement
The perfect time to start getting ready to measure you impact is while you’re developing your community plan! This is important because it will help you decide how you will identify the impact you are having, and give you the opportunity to share it with others – including your community, other communities, government and potential funders.
Developing a Logic Model and Outcome Framework for your Justice Reinvestment Site
A Logic Models and Outcome Frameworks are tools used in Impact Measurement, which it is important to develop at the start of the project.
A logic model is a visual representation of your short, medium and long-term goals, what you will do to achieve them, and then gets you to plan for how you will know if you’re making progress. An outcomes framework is a plan for how you will measure if you are achieving your goals. You can find out more about these using the resources below, or speak to the SRWA team.
Identifying the outcomes which you want to achieve for your community is a great activity to involve the community in as part of developing your Justice Reinvestment Plan. It gets everyone thinking about what you want achieve, and what you might need to do to make it happen, and how you will be able to measure and report on your progress. It doesn’t need to be an intimidating process, and it’s great to have lots of people involved in setting up for impact measurement
Helpful Tools and Resources
Tools & Strategies to help develop your community plan
Bank of Ideas (Conversation & Facilitation Tools)
Impact Measurement Tools & Support
Social Impact Toolbox (for tools to measure outcomes)
Download a copy of the Data & Information module here