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Annual Report 2003 - 2004

President's Report 2003 - 2004

This past year has seen both frustration and joy – after being refused entry into Victoria Park, we moved on a rental basis to Perth and as the year closed we finally, after 40 years, moved into our own building in Moore Street, East Perth. Our thanks to Lottery West for their help and assistance who made this final move possible.

Your Outcare Trust continues its activities and it is anticipated that our successful law breakfasts will continue with one scheduled prior to Christmas.

It continues to amaze that after 40 years there are so many people and organizations not aware of Outcare and what we do. If you wish to nominate a new member or need a speaker for a function let us know. We are always on the lookout for increased exposure.

As we move into another year I would be remiss if our staff and volunteers were not given the thanks they deserve. From all of us to all of you – thanks for a job well done.

W. L. Case III
President

Executive Director’s Report 2003 - 2004

By far the most important activity of this year has been the "new" re-entry project which we tendered for and began in April this year. While presented as a new project, in reality this program is not too different to the pre and post release services Outcare has been offering for the last couple of decades and this has made it somewhat easier for us to get it up and running. The major difference is the criteria that has been set for clients accessing the service, as it is primarily aimed at offenders exiting prison who have served finite sentences and who are recognised as statistically being at significant risk of re-offending.

The project entailed the recruitment of quite a few more staff and there is now a sizable number in Outcare’s Community Support Services arm and this service is progressing very well.

In 2003 when the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) was being restructured (and then later finally disbanded), the regional council in its final round of decision making ceased funding our Aboriginal Staff positions. This was a major concern to us as it had been funding this for many years and it was a much needed service for Aboriginal offenders. Fortunately we were given substantial notice and with some financial support from both ATSIS and the Department of Treasury and Finance we were able to keep these two positions running until the new re-entry service began. This extra support was a great bonus for us as we had experienced Aboriginal staff we did not want to lose.

The restructure of ATSIC, while problematic to us in the one sense as just described, did offer opportunities in other areas and we were successful in attracting funds for an Aboriginal Youth worker. This position will be integrated with our existing youth services and will work with Aboriginal Youth exiting the Juvenile detention centres. This will allow our youth services to be more accessible to Aboriginal youth who are in conflict with the justice system.

Outcare’s employment services has continued to provide a range of services to a wider range of prisons on its reduced funding level. In order to inject more resources into this area Outcare has taken out a Job Placement Licence and this now operates under the title of Jobstart. We are also providing more specialised services in relation to fines management and recovery of drivers’ licences so that our clients become more employable. The Employment and Training service has also established very productive relationships with various Job network providers who are able to offer incentives and other resources to our clients and the service. The move to the new building has allowed an open access area and a training area to be set up for clients. The new re-entry training requirements are now managed through this area as it complements the objectives of both the re-entry service and the Employment and Training Service.

The Family Support Centres continue to deal with an amazing number of client contacts across the prisons we work at. We also moved across to Boronia, the new women’s prison, when Nyandi closed down. This prison is a great example of forward thinking and proactive corrections best practice and we are keen contributors to the successful work that is taking place there.

In 2003 Outcare was asked to take over major sponsorship of Santa’s Workshop, a role which was formerly done by Curtin FM Radio. This Santa’s Workshop was originally set up with Outcare as its major beneficiary and over the past few years other organisations became beneficiaries as well and these are spread all over the state. These include some regional prisons where goods are provided for their children’s play areas. Outcare approached Lotterywest and the final result is that there is now a dedicated workshop facility located at Sevenoaks College in Cannington which is developing a mutually beneficial relationship with the school community there. Pieta O’Shaughnessy of Curtin FM and David Woods of Sevenoaks College have also been prime movers in this developmental partnership which culminated in the facility being opened by the Premier, The Hon Geoff Gallop, in early 2004. We are working with this group to more closely support each other on mutual projects.

In December 2003 Outcare finally purchased a building at 27 Moore St, East Perth. This has been the culmination of over 6 years work developing and marketing the idea and chasing up prospective properties. This result, like many of our successes, would not have been possible if not for the support of Lotterywest. The outfitting and move took place over the following 6 months and the organisation and staff have coped well with the transition under difficult circumstances. This was our second organisational move in 14 months; however we are now in Moore St for good.

Outcare was able to achieve a reasonable equity in the asset and this allows us to have a far greater sense of permanency and security for the organisation. While our focus should and will remain on developing and providing human services, the bricks and mortar are a public demonstration of a significant milestone for the organisation.

With the help of a Lotterywest grant we were able to upgrade our information technology when moving into the new building, and again this is much needed support that we could not have raised elsewhere.

This year we became involved in a pilot traineeship re-entry program which never quite got off the ground for a variety of reasons; staffing changes, prison protocols, many players with different understanding and agendas etc. That the pilot did not continue is a pity because previously when we had done similar work in the early 1990’s we were quite successful in making traineeship placements for exiting offenders. One positive that did come out of the process is Outcare’s continued involvement with the Section 94 trainees from Karnet Prison who are doing meat work traineeships at Harvey Beef. In partnership with Harvey Beef we will be managing a trust account that will support the trainees when they are released with such things as relocation costs, housing and so on.

Late in the year we were formally roped into the SACS award. This in itself was not an issue for the organisation as we were paying at levels that were roughly aligned to those in the award. The major concern for us was the impact the award would have on our costs in regard to paying weekend penalties rates, as these historically have not been allowed for in past funding arrangements. After canvassing the views of staff on alternatives to the award we agreed to approach the Government with the union to see if the funding issue could be addressed through that avenue. A previous approach about 1 _ years ago flagging the future potential problem was not altogether warmly welcomed, however our recent approach to Department of Justice staff was dealt with very reasonably and at the time of writing work is underway to quantify the problem and look at what options might exist. Hopefully this issue will be resolved without major changes or staff positions being affected.

Mid year we were approached by the Department of Justice with a suggestion that they transfer Outcare’s accommodation stock over to other organisations which had gained accommodation related contracts with the Department. The main rationale provided for this idea was that Outcare had recently won the re-entry contract and that other agencies could provide the accommodation support. We ardently opposed this move for the following reasons:

• It flies in the face of internationally recognised best practice whereby providing a holistic throughcare service is known to be one of the best approaches to preventing recidivism.
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• One of the agencies suggested as recipients of our housing stock also had re-entry services so the logic did not hold up.
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• Finally and importantly, the current housing stock took significant effort over 20 years to accumulate, and to walk in and attempt to take it away was discrediting the immense amount of work that has been done by Outcare in pursuing the need for accommodation for ex-offenders especially when no one else was interested in doing so.

The Department has clearly stated they believe we are providing a very good service so we are not sure why there have been these suggestions. At the time of writing, we are still providing this service but are not sure where it may head. Ironically we have recently been asked for our accommodation service to be used as an example of best practice to be included in a publication being done within the accommodation provision field.

Additionally, the Department of Housing has been working towards establishing a small number of key landlord organisations and removing this role from many of the smaller organisations who manage accommodation stock owned by the Department of Housing. We are unsure as to where they perceive Outcare might sit in this structure. As we deal with a very special and often very difficult target group, we will want to ensure our clients will get the best possible support and we are yet to be convinced that this can be provided by a 3rd party management structure.

A submission to expand our addictions counselling to provide services specifically to women was not successful but is an area we will continue to pursue. By and large, the issue of drug abuse and client success or failure is directly related and we must continue to try to increase our resources in this area in order to work more successfully with our clients.

The St John of God Foundation has generously refunded the Women’s Services for another 3 year cycle. Their continued support is greatly appreciated.

One of the longer term good news stories this year was the introduction of the State Government’s new policies in regard to the non government human sector. This allows for a less stringent approach to contracting and tendering, a focus on the building of partnerships and an across government approach to annual funding adjustments in regard to CPI. These policies bring a greater stability to the arrangements between the government and non government agencies, and will allow for a more secure approach to the allocation of resources within agencies.

A focus on testing the quality of services will to some degree replace the testing of the market in financial terms and as the sector is generally not involved in profit taking, this is a much better model for working with non-government non-profit organisations.

The establishment of a position to manage the Department of Justice non government agency contracts has been a very positive step within that organisation and has allowed a greater degree of communication and discussion around service management processes and standards. It allows us to work on a more productive partnership level and to maximise the outcomes for our common clients.

We have continued to contribute to development and policy in the corrections area, most notably through the Department of Justice Advisory Committee, the Community Consultative Committee for the Office of the Inspector of Prisons, LOTS (Linking Offenders to Services), Centrelink meetings, The Emergency Forum and so on.

In summary, our year has been mostly consumed by the re-entry services and the new accommodation in Moore St. I invite our supporters to come and inspect the new premises, our programs and to meet our staff.

Some new supporters I would like to thank are the Nedlands Dalkeith Masonic Lodge who have provided help for our Hakea Family Support Service and also the Wyllie group who have provided support to the Santa’s Workshop at Sevenoaks College in Cannington. There are also a few individuals who have also made sizable contributions but who do not want public acknowledgement and to them we say thank you, we know who you are.

I would also like to publicly thank Sandy Leitch who has been a volunteer with us for quite some time. Sandy recently retired after putting in 5 days a week for the last 5 of the 7 years he has been with Outcare organising and doing our accommodation maintenance. This has been a great contribution and support to this service.

The whole team at Outcare has put in a great effort over the year amongst a large amount of change and disruption, and they are to be thanked and commended for their efforts. Thank you all.

Peter Sirr
Executive Director