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> Annual Report 2001 - 2002

Annual Report 2001 - 2002

President's Report 2001 - 2002

The Outcare Trust began its activities this past year with over 200 people attending our law breakfasts at the Western Australian Club. Activity during the coming year will be stepped up and news of forthcoming events will be released shortly.

Our search for a permanent home for Outcare continues and we are working closely with the Lotteries Commission in this regard. We are hopeful that we will be successful this year now that we have received notice of a definite grant amount.

By the time you read this you will have received your latest edition of the Outcare newsletter which we hope to bring to you on a quarterly basis in future. Suggestions and comments for future issues are welcomed.

Our long established Accommodation Service continues to be stretched to the limit and although requests for additional housing are being considered, budget restrictions continue to plague this program and many of our others as well.

As Outcare moves into another busy year, our specialized program areas become needed more than ever and it is thanks to you, our members, donors, staff, volunteers, Board members and Trustees that we are able to continue to play our small part in these areas of need.

W. L. Case III
President

Executive Director’s Report 2001 - 2002

This has been a year of significant change and also recognition for the organisation. We were fortunate enough to be able to spend the year as the Gold Swan Community Organisation Citizen of the year. This recognition from our peers was the most potent public signal that the work we do and the way we do it is valued by those that understand our work. As we know, our work is not well understood by the general community so it was fortunate it was our peers doing the judging. Achieving this award was the result of many years of hard work by staff, volunteers and other supporters, many of whom remain behind the scenes without public recognition. Congratulations again to all of you.

The size of the organisation has increased considerably this year. Paradoxically, we are in an "industry" where we are trying to decrease the need for our services but the demand continues to grow, much of it driven by the use and abuse of drugs by offenders.

Over the year we have had up to 65 staff, an increase of well over 20% on the previous year. Our client contacts were well in excess of 160,000 this year, significantly up again on the previous year. The addition of new projects brings with them new challenges and also some extra burdens, not the least being the need for more administration services to manage financial, personnel and management aspects of the organisation.

Many old and sometimes even new project budgets cannot support the allocation of administration on costs and then still be able to provide the service levels asked for in the service specifications. Sometimes our only choice is to take a project on and put more workload onto existing staff, something which has occurred often in the past. This also occurs with new projects, for example, I recently submitted for a $350,000 service with the expectation that if we were successful, that probably none of those funds would be able to contribute to its management. Additionally some projects specifically exclude the use of the funds for any administration purposes and will only cover wages and operational costs.

We have contracts that go to the extent of acknowledging that the funds allocated are not seen to be enough to cover the full service and have a written specification that Outcare will raise donations to supplement them. Some specifications have gone so far as to attempt to exercise ownership over those donations.

More critically, some of our longer term existing services are funded way short of the needed levels, for example the accommodation and post release services which have experienced significant increases in demand over the years but has not had funding support expansion to cover them.

We are a small / big organisation, or a big / small organisation with a reasonably sized staff, yet there are only 2.4 staff in the whole organisation who don’t have some client support related functions. One of the challenges for the next couple of years is to adjust and resource our core management structures to properly service the organisation.

A concentrated effort to provide more case management services and to resist reactive service provision has allowed for a more streamlined approach to client work. It has also resulted in much better internal communication and mutual support between staff about client needs and plans, providing a better outcome for more clients.

A major update of our procedures and operational processes was also completed in the year.

New activities and projects: In the past year we took on several new projects and services. In the first quarter of last year we took on 3 new prison based family support services in a caretaker capacity and then won the contracts to provide the services for the next 3 years. We also won the contracts for our existing 3 prison based family support services for that period as well. Outcare now provides prison based family support services at every public prison site in the metropolitan area.

Late last year Outcare won a contract to provide accommodation support to clients of the new Drug Court. Contrary to my expectations this pilot service turned out to be a very difficult service which, in the final analysis was only providing emergency accommodation services to clients who had burnt their bridges in all the other accommodation services around Perth. This accommodation model was not appropriate for drug court clients with high supervision needs, and as a result the pilot was not really successful in dealing with these clients, however it clearly demonstrated that a more intensive supervised accommodation service was needed. A positive result of the exercise was that Outcare, with the Support of WADASO (now the Drug and Alcohol Office), negotiated the retention of the housing stock for justice system clients.

A new youth project called Options, funded through the Federal Reconnect program, began late in 2001. This service works with young people in conflict with the justice system who have accommodation and family reconciliation issues. The 3-year funding cycle attached to this program heralds a more concrete footing for the provision of specialist youth services at Outcare. We have had to set up a new office in Victoria Park to house both the youth projects as office space in West Perth became too much of a problem.

We continued the pilot project working with offenders with intellectual disabilities into this year and this ceased in March. After reviewing the work and effort involved, the exercise was seen to be very productive and successful, even though the client eventually re-offended and returned to prison. It was something from which we learnt a significant amount, but one which we are now reluctant to repeat. The funding model in the disability sector is not one which is primarily directed at, or lends itself readily to working with very high needs offenders with intellectual disabilities. It placed demands on the organisation which were not acceptable in the long term and a different model providing longer-term financial stability and providing outsourcing services to other organisations would be more appropriate, in which case we would be better able to work in this area.

The organisation currently has submissions in (or been involved with) for youth accommodation services, internet training in prisons, the relocation of Santa’s Workshop (a Curtin University initiative) and for a prison legal clinic within Hakea Prison. This is our second attempt for the Legal Clinic but as we think it is such a good idea that will have benefits across the whole prison system, we have decided to keep on pushing it.

Older members will remember that we have been pursuing, for more years than I care to remember, the objective of finding a more permanent office base for the organisation. It is with great satisfaction I am able to report that the Lotteries Commission has formally financially committed itself to the objective and we are now in a position to search for and purchase office accommodation for Outcare.
I say it every year and I’m saying it again now, that without the support of the Lotteries Commission we would never have achieved what we have over time and certainly the significant changes that I am aware of over the last 13 years have been underpinned by the support and encouragement of the Lotteries Commission. Ultimately, also the Gold Swan Award last year would not have been possible without this support over time.

At the time of writing, an anxiety we have into the next year is the future of adequate employment services to offenders. It is well recognised that the provision of employment and training support is crucial in reducing offending and re-offending behaviour. The State Employment Assistance Strategy (SEAS) has been undergoing some review for the last two years and this year a new model has been put forward. This model is based on reducing duplication with the Federal Job Network system and improving the employability of the unemployed in this state. We subscribe to both aims but we are concerned that this change will clearly result in a substantial reduction in funding for offenders and ex-offenders employment related services. In relation to the demand, it is another example of where the existing funding is already insufficient. In recent years Outcare has had to fund raise to maintain the service at a higher level than it was funded for. We cannot maintain this any more. One argument for increased funding is illustrated by contrasting it with a service in Queensland with nearly identical performance measures which is funded at over 4 times annually what this service has been.

Offenders are one of the most disadvantaged of jobseekers, do not get the service the Job Network promises, and if we are serious about crime prevention, more resources should be directed into this area rather than away from it.

The Young Offenders Pilot Project is a federally funded pilot project which is due to end in the last quarter of this coming year. This is a project which helps young offenders comply with their release orders and related issues on exiting detention, and has been quite successful in a number of cases. We would like to continue this project but at the time of writing we have been unsuccessful in finding replacement funding for it. The Federal Government funded it as a pilot program only and the current Government's drive to finding significant financial savings within state department’s budgets is affecting our chances of success with this endeavour.

As a result of the Homelessness Taskforce’s work, there are some service proposals emerging which we may be able to take advantage off in the near future. There are some initiatives in the accommodation and financial counselling areas which will provide a much needed boost in support for both young and adult offenders, ex-offenders and their families. I am pleased to see some of these initiatives are coming from the Department of Community development as I have long believed that crime prevention should take on a more across government approach.

An even longer-term view of crime prevention is that we must also begin work with people who are not yet involved with the justice system but are at high risk of becoming so. This will mean that in pursuing crime prevention objectives we may possibly move into areas which will not at first glance appear to have anything to do with Outcare's primary client group; offenders, ex-offenders, and their families.

By moving into primary crime prevention, that is targeting and supporting families and children and youth at risk of involvement in the Justice system, we would be having a direct impact on future offender and prison populations. Such a re-molding of philosophy is well supported in the research on what works in crime prevention and I anticipate that the organisation will test the waters in this regard in the near future.

I would like to thank the Board, staff, volunteers and others for their unwavering support. An annual report never does justice to the activity that occurs throughout the year and I myself cannot do it justice in a few words. The increase in, and the diverse locations of staff has set challenges for the management of the organisation and I hope that we, the Board and the Management Team, have made the organisation inclusive and supportive and that you have found our management to be of a high ethical and professional standard. I need to specifically state my own appreciation of the personal support offered to me by the Board and Management Team at Outcare over what has been a very busy and demanding year.

Thank you all.

Peter Sirr
Executive Director