Consulting the Public About Australia’s Care and Support Sector
Australia’s care and support sector is vital in helping over two million senior Australians, people with a disability, and veterans and their families to live with safety, dignity and independence. Heartward provided analysis and consulting support to a cross-departmental taskforce that engaged with stakeholders and the public to help develop a plan for the effective and efficient operation of the sector into the future.
“Heartward supported the cross-departmental taskforce to deliver a staged, national consultation approach, offering inclusive opportunities to engage.”
We worked collaboratively with the taskforce through the multi-stage consultation; facilitating national stakeholder workshops and targeted audience focus groups, designing and analysing data from two community surveys, and reviewing written submissions. Heartward synthesised the findings from across all elements into full and public-facing reports. Our focus was on ensuring stakeholders and members of the public (including those who might not usually participate in national consultations) had avenues to provide input. All elements of the consultation gave audiences the chance to communicate their views on key challenges facing the sector and its participants, to suggest and debate potential solutions, and to put forward views and preferences on how changes could be rolled out over time.
Heartward’s services ensured the consultation was able to fully realise its goals of:
bringing people from all care and support sectors together
listening, facilitating discovery and conversations
recognising complexity, solving problems and designing solutions
delivering outcome-focussed consultation through tailored and targeted discussion
offering choice through multiple platforms and multiple sessions for participation
recognising stakeholder diversity, ensuring broad representation from community and stakeholder groups including people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and First Nations peoples.