Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service: Outcomes Management Framework

The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS) offer a holistic service to cater for their clients’ complex, multi-faceted needs. They offer criminal, civil and family legal services, combined with community justice support programs, whilst also engaging in policy and advocacy initiatives to address big picture issues.

SVA Consulting worked with VALS to develop organisation-wide outcomes framework, data collection tools and implementation roadmap, all of which are planned to be implemented.

Melbourne – Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service

The project (icon)
The project

VALS was seeking to better understand the impact of its model of legal support on the clients, community and justice system in Victoria. To do this, they were looking to develop a more comprehensive approach to measure and report on outcomes for clients at both an organisation-wide level as well as for specific divisions.

The objective (icon)
The objective

To articulate the outcomes that VALS creates for its clients, community and the justice system, and develop practical approaches to capturing the necessary evidence for each of VALS’ divisions.

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The role we played

Working with VALS, SVA Consulting:

  • Developed Theories of Change, both at the organisation-wide level, and for each VALS division. These articulated complex stories of change across four outcome domains and six practice areas;
  • Established an Outcomes Framework, including a comprehensive set of outcomes that reflect the Theories of Change, and indicators for measuring the aforementioned outcomes, drawing on sector best practices and the input of VALS personnel;
  • Recommended and designed a series of data collection tools, including client questionnaires, staff reflection forms, and relationship management tools. These tools will enable efficient collection of data across and within teams at VALS without overly increasing workloads; and
  • Conducted extensive stakeholder consultation, capturing the input of key VALS and external stakeholders through facilitated workshops and interviews, to ensure the feasibility of and buy-in to the recommendations.

Our impact (icon)
Project impact

Implementation of the recommendations begun soon after project completion. VALS intends to implement every recommendation provided by SVA Consulting as part of this project.

“The framework designed by SVA Consulting will help us track outcomes of our strategic activities to ensure they are achieving their overall aim of ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are able to fully exercise their legal rights as Australian citizens, reduce the rate of adverse contact with the justice system and have improved wellbeing.”

– Nerita Waight, CEO, VALS