We strive to deliver the most effective programs possible to assist vulnerable people and communities here in Australia and further afield.
We take pride in our strengths-based approach to delivering our services, where we focus on the unique skills and abilities of those we work with, rather than their perceived weaknesses.
Red Cross’ program effectiveness, accountability and learning team identifies and prioritises key ways we can build program effectiveness across our broad range of services, then supports the organisation to implement best practices.
Our goals
We are committed to being effective and accountable in all that we do. We want clients, beneficiaries and communities to be key stakeholders in program design and decision-making, and our actions to be based on strong social research with financial and operational rigour.
We recognise and build on the strengths of people like James, who came to our Cairns Wellbeing Centre for support while he battled a number of health issues. Having pushed through those tough times, James now volunteers at the centre to help other people to do the same.
Australian Red Cross/Leigh Harris
Building on clients’ strengths
To build our strengths-based approach to delivering our services, this year we engaged Red Cross people to help us identify and promote best practices. We also encouraged our clients to participate in service design and delivery, listening to and learning from their diverse range of strengths.
Raising the community voice
Community voice is an approach which places clients and communities at the centre of all we do. We recognise that we work in an environment where there is often an inherent power imbalance, which makes it all the more important to actively seek out the ideas of those we are most accountable to – our clients and communities.
This year we completed the first phase of a project to define best practices for recognising the views and voices of communities and making use of their feedback. We identified several improvements that will inform our future processes, including ensuring that our beneficiaries have access to timely and clear information about our work, and actively encouraging and enabling client feedback. The next phase of this project will involve embedding these best practices into all our services through the establishment of client advisory committees and other mechanisms.
