Tools to support evidence informed practice in the child and family sector
About the tools
Delivering high quality services for children and families means making evidence-informed decisions about what you do, how you do it, and how you know it’s making a difference.
The Evidence informed Practice Compass and Monitoring, evaluation and learning: a guide for service providers are 2 complementary toolkits designed to help child and family service providers build, strengthen and sustain evidence informed practice in real world settings. Together, they support organisations to reflect on their current practice, plan improvements, and use evidence to learn and adapt over time.
Who are these resources for?
These toolkits have been developed for service providers across the child and family sector. They are suitable for practitioners, managers, evaluators and leaders who want practical, evidence informed ways to support quality practice and better outcomes for children and families.
Evidence-informed practice compass
A practical framework that helps child and family service organisations identify and strengthen the key elements that underpin an evidence informed practice approach. The Practice Compass sets out the core domains of an evidence informed practice approach and incudes 2 linked tools.
Monitoring, evaluation and learning
A guide for service providers supports child and family service organisations to understand whether their programs and services are working, for whom, and why – and how they can be strengthened over time. Whether your organisation is just starting out or already has established processes in place, the MEL Guide is designed to be flexible, accessible and practical.
How the MEL Guide and Practice Compass work together
You can use the MEL Guide and the Practice Compass as separate resources to support discreet areas of practice. But they have been designed to be used together to support a continuous improvement approach.
- The Practice Compass helps you identify what aspects of evidence informed practice to focus on and where improvement is needed.
- The MEL Guide helps you plan how to gather, use and learn from evidence as you implement and refine your practice.
Used together, they support an approach that is:
- strengths based and reflective
- responsive to local context and community need
- focused on learning, not compliance.
Keep in mind – you don’t need to tackle all the elements of the MEL guide and the Practice Compass at once. You may prefer to prioritise specific MEL tasks or practice domains to work through one or two at a time.
7 May 2026