The People’s Policy on Child Wellbeing was a collaborative and deliberative process in South Australia which trialed a citizen-led approach to policymaking. Instead of politicians designing policy and presenting it to the public for approval, this case turned that process on its head by supporting citizens to develop policy themselves.
Title
Brief description
The scope of this case was to develop a detailed policy document addressing what needs to happen to increase the number of children living safely at home in South Australia. The People’s Policy on child wellbeing specifically addressed the issue of children being living in care away from their families, and considered how children and families can be supported to stay safely with their families.
Keywords
City/Country
Time period
2017-2018
Lever(s)
Policy, regulation & governance
Culture, civic participation & social innovation
Capacity & capability
Methodologies
People's policy
- The People’s Policy method was developed as part of this case. People’s Policy is a citizen-led approach to policymaking.
Deliberative processes
- Deliberation requires the weighing of arguments and evidence, respect and consideration of diverse perspectives, and orientation towards public interests; all of which are required to design robust policies. Deliberative processes typically bring small groups of citizens together to learn about a policy area and deliberate on solutions.
World Region
Scale(s) of the case analysed
Target audience and dimension
Domain(s) of application
Context addressed
Solution applied
Challenge addressed/ Problem-led approach
Barriers addressed
Main Practices
Impact
Co benefits
Engagement Journey
Impact to climate neutrality
Context & Public policy of reference
In this case, the public policy was itself developed by the process. The policy was on child wellbeing in South Australia.
Innovative approach(es) addressed
As a process, it aimed to provide an antidote to highly partisan policies proposed during election campaigns, by developing a citizen-led, non partisan policy process.
Initiator
The People’s Policy on child wellbeing was initiated by DemocracyCo, an organisation who designs and delivers deliberative citizen engagement. Central to their thinking was that the process should be run independently from government in order to be free from party politics and short term thinking driven by election cycles. Alongside DemocracyCo, a range of other organisations from the field of child protection formed a stakeholder coalition who oversaw the process.
Stakeholder networks and organisational model
Stakeholders:
Council of Social Services, Aboriginal family support service, Community Centres SA , The Wyatt Trust, Uniting communities- Stakeholder coalition and funder
DemocracyCo- initiator, funder
Anonymous- funder
Network, governance and communication:
a. Citizens, experts and stakeholders worked collaboratively to write a detailed policy document on child wellbeing and protection.
b. Decisions in this process were taken by both the coalition of stakeholder partners, and the citizen participants. The partners designed the original question, whilst participants self-organised in terms of how they wanted the process to run. Whilst this process was initiated and funded by DemocracyCo, they ultimately wanted the process to be owned by citizens.
c. The citizen participants designed surveys themselves and conducted them with their own networks and communities to gain a broader insight into people’s experiences of the issue. They also interviewed people affected by the issue.
d. In addition to this self-organised work, participants were presented with expert briefings and inductions on the topic. Because of the sensitive nature of child protection, volunteer student counsellors also supported the participants as they processed potentially traumatising information.
e. This was an experimental process, and the first time it has been trialled. Because it was self-funded by the initiators DemocracyCo, and run independently from government, it was not automatically connected to existing decisionmaking processes.
f. A sub-group of citizen participants formed voluntarily to continue the promotion of the policy and advocacy for the policy and process itself, specifically focusing on political parties and government. This sub-group was supported by the stakeholder coalition.
g. However, there was not long-term evaluation process set up to assess the policy impacts of the process. Anecdotally, the people's policy has been a source of information for child wellbeing policy by the state government, but this is not officially documented (personal communication with DemocracyCo, 17 March 2022).
Democratic Purpose
Participant Recruitment
nteraction between participants
Resources
Key enablers
Key inhibiting factors
Finding independent funding was a significant challenge. Crowdsourcing was initially considered but because it was a trial process, it’s difficult to persuade people of its value without evidence upfront.
Funding limitations led to limitations on recruitment, which is an expensive process for random stratification. It meant that a smaller group than planned took part.
Drawbacks/pros/cons of the solutions (after implementation)
Drawbacks:
1. Because the process was not directly connected to decisionmaking, it isn’t immediately obvious if the policy was taken up and the long term impact of it. There was no evaluation of its influence on policymaking, although anecdotally it has informed the development of policies on early years wellbeing (personal communication with DemocracyCo, 17 March 2022).
Pros:
1. Demonstrated citizen-led policy with non-partisan, long term lens beyond election cycles.
2. Illustrated how participants in citizen engagement processes can also be supported to take ownership and guide the process themselves, through deciding what procedures to use, and how to promote and advocate for their policy.
3. The final policy document was presented to all six political parties active in South Australia, in the lead up to state elections. This time was intentional, to provide an antidote to the election campaign policy promises made by the parties.
Scalability
This was an experimental process, and the first time it has been trialled. Because it was self-funded by the initiators DemocracyCo, and run independently from government, it was not automatically connected to existing decisionmaking processes.
Key lessons
Demonstrated how citizen engagement can be run independently from government, with a coalition of different stakeholders funding and guiding the process.
Indicators
External link
DemocracyCo (2018). People’s Policy: Children’s Wellbeing in South Australia. https://www.democracyco.com.au/our-projects/peoples-policy-childrens-wellbeing/
DemocracyCo (2018). Launching the People’s Panel on Child Wellbeing (media release). https://www.democracyco.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Press-release_LAUNCH_FINAL.pdf
Participedia (2018). People’s Policy on Child Wellbeing. https://participedia.net/case/5228#_ftn10
Participedia (2018). People’s Policy. https://participedia.net/method/5229
People’s Panel on Child Wellbeing (2018). People’s Policy on Child Wellbeing (report). https://www.democracyco.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/PPCW_Report_CLIENT.pdf
Rebellato, E. and Hancock, S. (2018). SA child protection recommendations offered by Democracy Co community panel. ABC News, 30 January 2018. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-31/child-protection-recommendations-by-democracy-co-panel/9376656
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