The Families and Children (FaC) Expert Panel Project provides support, tools and resources aimed at building the capacity of FaC service providers to use evidence in practice.

The Expert Panel Project was established in 2014. This work is undertaken by a team at the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) and funded by the Department of Social Services (DSS).

Our ultimate aim is to help service providers to deliver more evidence-informed programs for parents and children, to achieve better outcomes for those parents and children who use their services. We do this by supporting service providers to build their capacity to:

• articulate the evidence underpinning their programs
• use evidence to guide the development and delivery of their programs
• build program monitoring and evaluation into their day-to-day practice.

Service providers can access four types of support via the project:

• We publish resources on our website to help with program planning, implementation, evaluation and outcomes measurement.
• We deliver workshops and other activities on different topics related to program planning and evaluation.
• We offer one-on-one support to FaC Activity providers and can help with different tasks related to program planning and evaluation planning.
• We support Communities for Children providers to meet the evidence-based requirements.

During the first phase of the project from 2014–17, the majority of Families and Children Expert Panel Project activities delivered by AIFS were directed towards supporting Communities for Children Facilitating Partners (CfC FP) service providers to meet the new funding requirements for evidence-based programs. An evaluation of the first phase of the Expert Panel Project was completed in 2018.

In the second phase (2017–20) of the Expert Panel Project, the AIFS project team continued their support to CfC FP providers but also provided capacity-building support to the wider set of services funded by the DSS under the Families and Children Activity. An evaluation of the second phase of the Expert Panel Project was completed in 2020. 

Subscribe to Expert Panel Project News and CFCA news to stay up to date with the Expert Panel and other CFCA projects. Information is also available on the DSS website.