Drummond street - Evaluating the impacts of COVID19 PART1

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands where we work and pay respects to elders past, present and future.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global emergency that is having a disproportionate impact on the communities who access our service. Communities who already experience marginalisation and who need support dealing with diverse and damaging impacts across a range of health and wellbeing outcomes. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, drummond street services, and our amazing staff, are adapting rapidly to meet the changing needs of those accessing our services.

Overview

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"We are all in the same storm, but not the same boat."

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This is an interactive report.It's designed to minimise the amount you have to read and emphasis the points you want to know. There will be things you can click on to get more information along the way. For example, want to know what this report is all about? Click below before continuing.

What is this report?

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CONTENTS

Top Tips For Engaging Young People

Responding to Client Needs

COVID19 Client Impact

Organisation's Reponse

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Let's get started! Click on any of the contents areas to the left to jump to a section. Or follow through the report in order by clicking next. You can return to this page at any time by clicking the contents button in the top right corner.

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To Client Impact

A move which was made possible by all our staff from across the organisation, who very quickly adapted to a new way of working.

Timeline

The Organisation's Response

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Click above to see an interactive timeline which documents the key steps and processes that took place during the month of March to facilitate moving everyone offsite.

Moving an entire workforce from the office to working from home within the space of a couple of weeks was no easy task. Our CEO Karen during this time has often exclaimed that, “business continuity planning is useful if one of your sites burns down, but what happens if all of your sites burn down and you have to move your entire workforce offsite?”. Well what happened was a lot consultation, planning and fast moving behind the scenes.

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Click on any of the orange circles to find out more about what happened on that date

Cease face-to-face counselling

20th - 21st

Ongoing Meetings Organised

30th

ds sites close

27th

MARCH2020

Business Continuity Planning- Transition to a home-based workforce

Reception and workflow changes

24th - 25th

Ensuring ds can work at home

22nd - 23rd

CEO all staff address

19th

High Risk Staff Identified

17th - 18th

State of Emergency Declared

16th

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See what issues arose across drummond street...

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Phase two of business continuity usually looks at resuming ‘business as usual’. There is however nothing ‘usual’ about the current way we are living our lives, supporting our clients, and delivering our services. Part of our stage two response therefore involves identifying risks, finding ways to respond to a changing environment and looking at strategic priorities within this new normal so that we can stay true to ds’ mission, values and Social Justice Framework by responding, in an informed way, to the needs of the community. CFRE have been supporting this process by collecting information from ds staff, which will be used to inform the organisation’s response. Thank you to ds staff for taking the time to share this information with us.

Client Impact

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How do different areas of ds compare?

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Across all teams at drummond street the key themes and issues that have been arising for clients are shown in the chart right. The larger the area of the chart the more often the issue was mentioned. The most common concerns for individuals resulted from a lack of social connection, stress and anxiety, and financial insecurity. These factors increased mental health distress (including increased worry of the unknown and financial insecurity), financial distress (over loss of work or job prospects), health and safety (such as being immunocompromised or being unable to leave the house), experiencing barriers to accessing services (external services and at drummond street) and experiencing or being at risk of family violence, heightened by being in lockdown under high stress. For further examples of each issue click on the area on the chart.

Client Impact

ACROSS DRUMMOND STREET

To ds overall

To client specified needs

With examples of each issue

All of ds

Click an area to find out:

Redress

Queerspace

Mentoring

Youth and communities

Living Free from Violence

Ready STeady Family

Futures Free from Violence

INTAKE

Western Region

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Northern Region

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Client Impact

How do themes and trends vary across different programs and areas?

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To new clients

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1/3

of clients experienced changes to their regular sleep

1/3

of clients experienced loneliness

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1/3

of clients experienced frustration or boredom

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of clients experienced increased anxiety

57%

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Clients who have been completing the in-house evaluation have been asked about how COVID-19 has affected their wellbeing using selected questions from the Pandemic Stress Index that was developed by Harkness, A. (2020) from the University of Miami. We have had 61 clients complete the evaluation questionnaire online from end of March to May.

Client Impact

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3%

of clients experienced not having enough basic supplies

3%

of clients experienced stigma or discrimination due to COVID-19

21%

of clients had increased AOD use

31%

of clients experienced increase in family or relationship conflict

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31%

of clients experienced personal financial loss

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Client Impact

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COVID19 was significantly impacting on the presenting needs of just over half of new clients

of new clients were contacting drummond street primarily due to COVID19

10%

New Clients

Client Impact

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At the point of intake, it is recorded whether COVID-19 was the reason for the person contacting drummond street and how COVID-19 has impacted on the individuals’ presenting needs.

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Both the risk of coronavirus and the measures in place have impacted the health and safety of individuals. Whilst being at risk of financial distress, social isolation and not accessing supports also puts people at greater risk of experiencing mental health distress.

Physical/Mental Health at Risk

Client Impact

Financial distress, social isolation, the inability to access support, and physical and mental health are impacting people disproportionately. Outlined below are those who have been identified by teams as being at particular risk of experiencing these issues during the COVID-19 pandemic:

Some supports cannot go online or are now difficult to access. Additionally, informal supports from family and friends have been reduced due to social isolation measures. Teams most commonly mentioned those in a caring role as being at risk of being unable to access support. Read more below:

Social distancing and isolation measures have placed people at high risk of experiencing social disconnectedness. Teams commonly mentioned people with a lack of digital resources and those with pre-existing mental health conditions as being particularly at risk. Click to see who was commonly mentioned by teams.

At Risk of Not Reaching Supports

At Risk Socially

The restriction of organisations, business and people has lead to a massive proportion of Australians with financial distress. All teams commonly mentioned individuals or families with restricted visas as being heavily impacted financially. Click below to see what at risk communities commonly were mentioned by teams.

At Risk Financially

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At Risk Clients

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What was it like for clients to participate in phone/videocall?

Moving our services online has created many benefits and disadvantages to clients. For example, although some clients were disadvantaged with a lack of access to technology and WIFI, on the flip side of that, we have also able to reach clients who we previously had difficulty engaging- such as dads in our parenting programs. The venn-diagram below outlines the most commonly identified positives and negatives of utilising telehealth.

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Telehealth

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Hover your mouse on a "client" to view an anonymous quote about their telehealth experience.

11 clients completed the feedback form at the end of their session from March to May and answered questions about how telehealth was for them. The majority of clients felt their needs were able to be met through phone/video call. While two clients reported having internet connection issues that impeded the session, the majority spoke of the overall benefit of using telehealth with 91% of clients feeling that their needs were able to be met through phone/video call.

Telehealth for Clients

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Although there have been numerous difficulties and issues that have arisen for people throughout COVID-19, there were also a number of positive points that were identified by teams.

Staff Adjustments to New Way of Working

Technology Creating Flexibility

Families Spending More Time Together

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Strengths

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Brokerage Funds

Moving Feast

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How have we responded to changing client needs?

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Innovative Responses from Staff

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How were deliveries made?

There have been a total of 13 drummond street services staff members who have assisted in delivering these meals to our clients and their family members. Thank you to all that helped with this! Deliveries were conducted using COVID-19 safe principles, with majority of meals dropped at clients’ doors, with clients receiving a text to confirm receipt of their delivery. Where deliveries were made at street level, ds staff exercised social distancing, maintaining a safe distance of 1.5 meters.

In response many client’s basic needs not being met as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we launched our Moving Feast Project in April to provide food deliveries to vulnerable and disadvantaged clients. Moving Feast, consists of organisations including STREAT, CERES, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre Catering, Fruit2Work, Whittlesea Food Collective and Cultivating Communities pooling resources together to make and distribute pre-cooked frozen meals to Community Organisations. Food options include a range of delicious culturally diverse vegetarian dishes including halal, vegan, lactose and gluten free. In May 2020, drummond street services ordered 1,890 pe-cooked frozen meals to assist a total of 270 people affected by COVID-19 (total of 84 clients and their families/households).

Where and how much

Click the phone to see some of the messages we received from clients

Moving Feast

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How have we responded to changing client needs?

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In addition to the Moving Feast, brokerage funds were spent by staff across the organisation to provide urgent material aid to clients to address a range of needs. Brokerage funds have addressed a wide range of client needs including helping vulnerable clients pay for emergency accommodation or rent, buying IT equipment including iPads, phones and data packs so that people can stay connected online and can engage in services and schooling, and providing food relief to support clients during the month of March while the Moving Feast project was being established. We have also used brokerage to support our clients buy much needed baby care needs, children’s toys and self-care items, including care packs and activity packs.

Brokerage Funds

How have we responded to changing client needs?

What and how much

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We think you are all pretty awesome!

We hope to share more innovative approaches in upcoming editions of this report, but for now, let’s just pause for a moment and reflect on all of this fabulous work and acknowledge the amazing adaptability and resilience of our workforce.

Read Here

To engaging young people

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In addition to an organisational response, staff from across the organisation are finding ways of responding to the changing needs of our clients, and to our new ways of working. There are a number of examples of innovative practice that have been shared with the CFRE team over the last few weeks. While this small summary in no way captures all the great work that you are doing within your teams, it does highlight some of the creative ways that people are making a difference to their clients.

Innovative ways that staff have responded

How have we responded to changing client needs?

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Stay safe and take care.

To innovative staff response

• Send care packs so that you can do joint activities whilst talking

• Don’t focus on COVID-19 - they are talking about feeling overwhelmed by discussion on this topic

• Develop words with them that gives them an opportunity to discuss things safely (e.g. if they don’t have a supportive home environment for their gender or sexual identity)

• Find out a good time to talk with them when others are/aren’t necessarily around

• Check out what their preferred method of communication is- young people often like to SMS

• Provide regular and consistent engagement in less formal ways

• Spend time learning about what young people are “into” and then send them things they can do that they’ll enjoy that you can then talk about

• Start with a discussion about what they are reading, watching, doing rather than about what they are feeling

• Learn about youth culture and share this knowledge to start conversations (e.g. social media phenomena that are popular right now like tiktok challenges)

• Engage in fitness or play games remotely with them as part of your catch up

A number of teams from across ds have mentioned that they were struggling to find ways of engaging young people in online services, so we asked members of the youth team to tell us their top tips for engaging young people- here is what they had to say:

Top tips for engaging young people!

Sharing Learnings

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