Overview
What is By Five?
By Five is a place-based initiative that aims to improve the health and wellbeing of children, with the vision that ‘every Wimmera Southern Mallee child succeeds in learning and life'.
By Five brings together five Local Government Areas, local services, practitioners, families and research organisations. The initiative builds on what already exists, and co-creates and trials innovative, place-based services and intervention strategies for children and young people.
The initiative was instigated in 2017 by the Wimmera Southern Mallee Regional Partnership and is proudly supported by the Victorian Government.
Watch the short documentary below on By Five's flagship, award-winning, 'born and bred' paediatric project.
Our role as evidence and learning partner
The Centre for Community Child Health has been the By Five evidence and learning partner since 2022.
We’re working with By Five to learn what works to improve outcomes for children and families in the Wimmera Southern Mallee.
Place-based innovation and systems change is complex work. As evidence and learning partner, we:
- guide initiative-wide monitoring, evaluation and learning
- support design and testing of local solutions
- facilitate trialling and implementation of evidence-informed interventions
- document and share what’s being learnt to inform policy and the spreading of solutions.
Impact and achievements
By Five
By Five is working to identify and embed local solutions, whilst also advocating for system and policy change to benefit children and families in the region.
Achievements so far include:
- Development and implementation of the Paediatric Project, an innovative model that builds the capacity of local professionals to support children and enables co-consultation for children and families with their local professional and a paediatrician from The Royal Children’s Hospital.
- Building relationships with more than 100 local organisations that provide support to children or families, and connecting with more than 100 families.
- Conducting in-depth investigations into the status of the local early years service system, including early childhood education and care, antenatal care and allied health. This has highlighted strengths to build on and key challenges to respond to.
- Launching a local campaign to a build a community culture that grows and supports children and families.
Evidence and learning
As evidence and learning partners we support and build the capacity of By Five to learn within projects and across the initiative, whilst building a learning culture.
Partnership activities include:
- Delivering individual coaching, group reflection sessions and workshops about approaches to planning, implementation and evaluation of place-based initiatives.
- Developing an initiative-wide monitoring, evaluation and learning framework to support learning, reporting and accountability.
- Leading the evaluation of nested, local solutions.
- Creating reports and briefs to share what’s being learnt with stakeholders.
Key reflections from the By Five team resulting from learning activities in 2022 were:
- We need to lead with inquiry and curiosity rather than with the answers when exploring and tackling complexity.
- We value reflection because it helps us recognise what we're doing well and where we need to change.
- We place importance on relationship-building because this ensures local ownership of the By Five Hub’s work.
- We can shift mental models. This enables us to think about things differently and see different solutions e.g. from traditional to transdisciplinary service models.
Learn with us
Are you the leader of a place-based community-led initiative and interested in support with learning? Contact Lauren Heery, Service System Innovation Manager at [email protected].
Our team
- Professor Sharon Goldfeld AM, Steering Committee Expert Advisor
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Lauren Heery, Service Systems Innovation Manager – Project lead
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Loretta Pilla, Project Officer – Project support
Partners and funders
By Five is led by Wimmera Southern Mallee Development in partnership with the Centre for Community Child Health at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and The Royal Children’s Hospital, and funded by the Victorian Department of Education.
Resources
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This webinar, Community capability and capacity building – the secret to great care everywhere, shares more detail around By Five.
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This policy brief focuses on telehealth and the opportunity to use existing services more effectively to embed paediatric expertise in regional primary care, using the By Five Paediatric Project as a case example.
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This progress report provides a snapshot of the achievements of By Five in 2022 and next steps.
Contact us
For more information contact Lauren Heery, Service System Innovation Manager at [email protected].