Summary
Targeted interventions are used to help families self-manage, stabilise a situation and support and engage people while they wait for a longer term response.
Targeted interventions are used at any point of a client’s engagement with The Orange Door and often occur alongside assessment and service planning. Targeted interventions are part of The Orange Door approach – they are not delivered separately or by different people. Targeted interventions are delivered by The Orange Door practitioners and may be delivered at the primary premises of The Orange Door, other locations of The Orange Door as part of outreach or over the telephone or other access modes, for example, online.
Interventions are delivered to achieve a range of different objectives. Practitioners work with their client to plan the most appropriate intervention. Possible interventions include:
- providing information and advice
- coordinating services for people who are generally able to self-support (for example, navigating the legal system, linking people to the universal service system, providing advice on local services)
- goal-directed, discrete interventions that supports behaviour change or harm minimisation
What this looks like within The Orange Door
Targeted interventions can be provided to all clients of The Orange Door (women, children, perpetrators of family violence, and families). The type of intervention offered is tailored to each circumstance and the desired objective of the intervention. Receiving a targeted intervention does not make clients ineligible for a longer term response from core services or the broader service system.
Targeted interventions are provided for the following reasons:
- To meet an identified need without requiring more extensive or specialised support (diversion away from the service system). Where safe and appropriate, targeted interventions are used to help people who can self-manage and navigate the service system themselves or whose needs are able to be met through a direct task or intervention (for example, lodging an application for housing assistance or concession). This may mean providing information and options about or supporting people to access universal or community services (for example, playgroups or community health care).
- To engage a client or family in the service system. This includes providing information and advice focused on goals or needs that are a high priority for the client to encourage or provide an opportunity to develop further trust in the worker and the service system to address other issues, or by providing a regular contact point for someone who is contemplating seeking help.
- To provide support and engage clients in place of other services. This includes providing regular follow-up or monitoring of risk and needs while a client or family is waiting for a more intensive response. For perpetrators, this may include telephone counselling focused on readiness to engage in services using motivational interviewing techniques.
Targeted interventions support clients/families experiencing family violence and provide early help in addressing child safety and wellbeing issues. This includes peer support activities and additional support to access universal services and ‘in-reach family services intervention’ that support early identification and an early response to child vulnerability by building family capability.
Target group
The target group for targeted interventions is broad and largely dependent on the objective of the intervention. They include:
- diversion – women, children and families who, with some support, can successfully self-manage and be prevented from requiring more intensive or specialist services (this may include families who require some additional and early help to prevent escalation of risk)
- stabilisation – all clients of The Orange Door, particularly women and children
- engagement – all clients of The Orange Door, including perpetrators of family violence, to promote engagement or to ‘monitor risk and actively engage with people while they wait for a longer term response
Workforce
The Orange Door practitioners provide targeted interventions.
Practice leaders provide advice to workers on appropriate targeted interventions to meet different needs.
Timing and duration
Targeted interventions are designed to act as immediate ‘stop gaps’ to meet identified needs. Targeted interventions may also form part of a suite of broader assistance to be delivered, including longer term service responses provided by specialist or universal services.
In the future
Co-location of services with The Orange Door will be determined by each local area and reflect the assessed needs of that area. When determining a suitable location for The Orange Door, the opportunity for co-locating other services will be considered as a desirable, but not essential, criterion. Co-locating other services could include universal and community services such as community health and maternal child and health, as well as specialist services such as family violence, family services, legal assistance or housing and homelessness services.
Co-located services will be available to provide on-the-spot secondary consultations for The Orange Door practitioners. Some service delivery will take place at co-located services, offering an access point into The Orange Door, as well as a service pathway from The Orange Door.
Updated