Developing a plan for families: listening to the community

• General community forums that operated in a similar way to facilitated focus groups, addressing the key questions posed in the consultation paper. Twenty-eight of these were held in the metropolitan area and 23 in the country.
• Special focus groups were conducted for Aboriginal people, new migrant groups, university students, for children and young people ranging from 3 to 15, including homeless youth in a refuge, for families with a member with a disability or a mental illness. It was expected that the general community forums would attract women particularly so special discussion groups were held for men only.
• Individual responses were sent by mail, email, over the website or by phone.
• A group of young people responded to some of the questions over the Kids Helpline (if their call did not require counselling and with their consent)
• A talkback television forum was held for those who could not get to a community forum venue.
• Many organisations made submissions and some peak organisations were interviewed.

Participation

More than 1000 people took part in one of the general or special community forums that took place in 22 metropolitan and 16 country locations throughout WA. More than 400 individuals and organisations sent submissions. In all, a total of 1496 people or groups contributed to the consultation, less than one per cent of WA’s population.

At all the general community forums structured participant feedback was invited. Satisfaction levels were high though many would have liked more time. The issues were considered relevant and people felt they were listened to. Demographic details collected at the same time suggested that those who took part in the general community forums were somewhat older than the general population, and, as expected, women were over-represented (74 per cent).

Data Collection and Analysis

At an early stage it was decided to take a qualitative approach to data analysis, aided by the computer content analysis tool developed in Melbourne and known as NUD*IST. This approach enabled the best use of the different sources of information provided by the individual responses and the forum discussions. This approach to data analysis required the transcription of 400 individual responses and 105 records taken at the discussion groups – a huge undertaking.

Data analysis using NUD*IST yielded more than 170 codes and these were reduced to 25 major themes that have clear policy implications. The use of NUD*IST made the reporting process easier and enabled it to keep close links with what people actually said – a sense of the raw data in all its richness. NUD*IST was invaluable in identifying pertinent direct quotes from families, which could be used liberally in the written report of the consultation to add to or illustrate the broad themes.

Reporting

The summary report of the consultation, entitled, Listening to Families and Children in the New Millennium, can be downloaded from the FamilyOne website. Hard copy versions have been distributed to participants and to government agencies and community organisations.

The report was structured around eight areas, each of which flows directly from the open-ended questions used in the consultation:

Table 2: The 8 areas of interest

1. Family Relationships
2. Fathers and Families
3. Children’s Learning & Families
4. Families, Neighbourhoods and Communities
5. Communities: the Physical Environment
6. Work and Families
7. Services and Families
8. Coordination of Services