Who completed the survey?

The 2024 survey received 890 responses (compared to 1,215 in 2023) and 558 fully completed responses (776 in 2023) from a range of child, family and community welfare professionals. 

People who participated in the survey came from all Australian states and territories. The most represented states were New South Wales (26%), Victoria (22%) and Queensland (19%). The pattern of responses was broadly in proportion to Australian population figures.

Responses to the survey came from different sectors and organisation types. More than half of respondents (52%) worked in either a community-based support service or other not-for-profit organisation (Table 1). The third largest single group of respondents (23%) worked in government. 

Table 1: Most common organisation types

Respondents were most likely to be employed as client-facing practitioners, mid-level managers or clinicians. Their main areas of work were family support services, education and training, child protection and/or out-of-home care, and mental health.

Respondents were relatively experienced: nearly 84% had been working for more than 3 years in their current sector and 45% for more than 10 years.

What you told us

Areas of practice you were interested in

We presented 23 broad topic areas and asked you to select the areas where you wanted or needed evidence-based resources. More than 50% of respondents indicated an interest in topics related to mental health and wellbeing, parents and parenting and domestic and family violence. The figure below shows the top 10 areas of interest and the percentage of respondents who said they want resources on these topics.

The next figure compares the top 10 topics of 2024 with 2023. It shows minor shifts within the overall rankings. Mental health and wellbeing had the greatest increase in interest, being ranked as the top priority in 2024, 3 places higher than in 2023.

Within these broad topic areas, we also asked people to identify subtopics of interest. The top 10 most requested subtopics in 2024 were broadly similar to those in 2023 (see figure below). 

Among these topics, mental health and wellbeing subtopics were the most requested in 2024 (compared to 2023, when domesic and family violence subtopics were highest). New subtopics of interest in 2024 were also about mental health, namely: 

• parental mental health  
• mental health and wellbeing of children/toddlers.

There was also a rise in the proportion of respondents selecting topics on fathers, adolescent mental health and wellbeing, mothers and post-separation parenting. 

Compared to 2023, child abuse and neglect subtopics (e.g. prevention and interventions in child protection and abuse) were ranked slightly lower in 2024, along with domestic and family violence interventions. These remain in the top 16 most chosen subtopics and are still clearly of interest to the CFCA audience.

How you want to receive information from us

We asked which CFCA resources support you to use evidence in your work. Most respondents used evidence from our online written resources, newsletters and webinars in their practice. 

The helpdesk – which aims to help users understand or find these resources – was the least likely to be used for support. Although this resource is still well-utilised, we will look at how we can further promote ways to help you to use our resources. 

We also looked at how people in different roles use different resource types by comparing the responses from the 3 most common role types: client-facing practitioners, clinicians and mid-level managers. 

We found that client-facing practitioners were more likely to use learnings from webinars. In contrast, clinicians and mid-level managers were slightly more likely to say they found newsletters most useful for informing their work. Client-facing practitioners were also marginally more likely to use the helpdesk.

What you liked about CFCA resources

We gave you the opportunity to provide an open-text answer about what you liked about CFCA resources. Much of the feedback you gave us was highly positive. Most commonly, we heard that:

• AIFS/CFCA is a trusted source of information and produces reliable resources.
• CFCA resources are informative, evidence-based and about Australian topics.
• CFCA resources are useful and relevant to practice.
• CFCA resources are of good quality. 
• CFCA resources are easily accessible.
• There is a good range of topics, content and resources.
• CFCA resources are easy to read and understand.
• CFCA resources are easy to share with colleagues and clients.

Here are some examples of what you liked about CFCA resources.

What we could do differently

We were also keen to understand what we might do better. Although most of the feedback was positive, we also heard from some of you about ways we could improve. 

The main suggestions focused on how we might explore different ways of delivering content and how we could do more to raise awareness about our resources, including reaching specific target audiences. We also heard that you want us to convey complex concepts in plain language, keep our resources current and cover emerging topics. 

Respondents expressed a desire for resources that can be quickly consumed and fitted into busy work schedules. Some suggested that AIFS resources could be more accessible with visual and interactive tools, such as video summaries of research and audio functionality. 

Some specific suggestions for improvement included:

• short summary documents that can be easily downloaded, printed and shared
• more infographics to facilitate understanding of key concepts
• more culturally appropriate resources and culturally relevant coverage.

These suggestions were similar to those we received in the last survey. This time we also heard that some of you would like to see us improve the readability of our resources on mobile devices. 

How will we use this information

We are reviewing the survey findings and your feedback so that it can inform our planning for the next 12 months. We use what you tell us to plan what topics we will research, what formats we will offer and what changes we can make to better meet your needs. 

We will also be taking this information to our Critical Friends Network (CFN) of people working in the child and family sector. This group helps us to interpret the survey data and provides us with access to a range of sector and expert perspectives that can:

• inform our topic selection for new resources
• provide insight into key child, family and community welfare sector issues and challenges
• provide feedback on our resources
• help us understand how the sector can be supported to use evidence in their practice.

The CFCA team would like to thank everyone who completed our survey. For anyone who was not able to participate and would like to get in touch, please contact us, or look out for our next Needs and Impacts Survey in the second half of 2025. We will let you know when the survey is open via our newsletter.