Resilient Families Program

Resilient Families aims to keep families together and prevent children from entering out-of-home care. Resilient Families was the second Australian social impact bond and the first to mature and continue as a payment-by-result contract. 

Child, mother and grandmother hugging and smiling
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About the program

Resilient Families is an intensive family preservation service designed to prevent children from entering out-of-home care (OOHC) by improving family functioning and creating a safer environment for children.  

The program is delivered by The Benevolent Society who work with at-risk families for up to a year, with an initial intensive 12 week period, where staff build trusting relationships and address immediate family crises.  

Resilient Families uses a Resilience Practice Framework, which incorporates professional practices and approaches proven to be effective. The initial phase of the service has strong similarities to the US model, Homebuilders.  

Key features

Investment type: Social Impact Bond

Private investor capital: $10 million (two tranches: $7.5 million capital protected and $2.5 million capital exposed) 

Expected government payments: up to $14.3 million 

Contract length: 5 years (starting 2013) 

Partners: 

  • Service provider - The Benevolent Society
  • Government agency - Department of Communities and Justice
  • Financial intermediaries - Westpac Banking Corporation and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Outcome payment metrics: Measured in comparison to a matched control group

  • Entries into OOHC 
  • Reports to the Child Protection Helpline 
  • Safety and Risk Assessments (SARAs) commenced by the Department of Communities and Justice. 

Where we are now

In 2018, Resilient Families was the first social impact bond in Australia to reach maturity.  

The program supported 303 families over five years, and showed positive results of families being supported to stay together, with the results recording 32% fewer children entering out-of-home care compared to the matched control group (i.e. those who received a business-as-usual service). Read the final evaluation report (PDF 3.9MB). 

Based on cumulative performance over the 5 year term, the results delivered capital-protected investors a 6% return on investment and capital exposed investors a 10.5% return per annum. For more information on the structure and details of the bond, see the information memorandum (PDF 1.7MB) or investor presentation (PDF 3.84MB).

At the end of the 5 year term, Resilient Families continued under a payment-by-results contract. From July 2021 the program continued under a Human Services Agreement with the Department of Communities and Justice based on Resilient Families' consistent positive outcomes.

Key learnings

Outcome metrics should be meaningful, objective and reliable. 

The Resilient Families evaluation found that the number of entries into OOHC was the most appropriate outcome measure as it reflects the primary goal of the program. This outcome measure is an established and independently verified indicator of child safety status and is easy to interpret due to its binary nature. 

The evaluation found that children supported through Resilient Families experienced lower OOHC entries, however had more Helpline Reports and SARAs than the control group. A possible reason suggested by the evaluation was detection bias as families in Resilient Families were under greater observation due to the intensive, home-based service compared to other parts of the child protection service system. 

While the number of Helpline reports and SARAs could be used as additional indicators for monitoring and evaluation purposes, they were found to not be suitable for outcome payment purposes. 

Evaluations

Resilient families story

3:20

Resilient Families - The Benevolent Society

Resilient Families is an intensive family support program keeping children with their families, where safe to do so, and out of foster care.

Read transcript
Video transcript

Resilient Families - The Benevolent Society

Lily was a big part of my life from the moment I found out I was pregnant, so when she was born I mean she kept me going because I want you to have the loving family and that's why I'm here.

[Joanne Toohey - CEO, The Benevolent Society]

The Benevolent Society has been running the Resilient Families program now for just over two years and it's our first social benefit bond.

[Wendy Haigh - Executive Director, Social Investment, The Benevolent Society]

It's about raising money from private investors and measuring the outcomes upon which a return is paid to the private investor out of the savings that that service delivers.

[Claudia Lennon - Manager, Resilient Families, The Benevolent Society]

What that funding model allows us is to be flexible in our service delivery.

[Karen Verrier - Lead Trainer, The Benevolent Society]

So, a lot of the families that we work with have a number of vulnerabilities and difficulties in their lives and the approach that workers have is to support them in the moment and also support them to develop the skills that they have, so that they can take those skills into the future and be more independent because life's always going to have struggles and challenges.

[Paul Beedy - Senior Case Worker, Resilient Families, The Benevolent Society]

The connections that we're making with our families is creating change. There's no other service that can dedicate the amount of hours that we do so if you lose that we know that families will then either end up in care or even worse.

[Joanne Toohey - CEO, The Benevolent Society]

We have over 43,000 children in out-of-home care across Australia which obviously for us is completely unacceptable and that figure is projected to increase 9 percent every year over the next 3 to 5 years.

[Trevor Danos AM - Chair, NSW Social Impact Investment Expert Advisory Group]

So in measuring the outcome of these bonds, really one has to realize that two maybe three times the number of families that would be in out-of-home are not in out-of-home care. It tells you the bonds and the innovation can make a

real difference.

[Wendy Haigh - Executive Director, Social Investment, The Benevolent Society]

Social benefit bond is so important for Australia at this time in terms of building a market for impact investing.

[Simon Ling - Head of Debt Markets, Commonwealth Bank Australia]

The broader success is that people learn from what we've done and you see other bonds come out which build upon our success in this transaction.

[Craig Parker - Executive Director, Structured and Asset Finance, Westpac]

What I see is the hallmarks of a very, very successful bonds and certainly from my perspective it's tracking pretty well.

[Caralee McLiesh - Associate Secretary, Agency Budget and Policy Group, NSW Treasury]

I think in government we have a sense that we're on a journey towards something that's really excitine. We see a vibrant social impact investment market in the future with government not-for-profits and investors working together to create better social outcomes and better financial outcomes. I think we're going to look back and realise we were at the start of something really special.

[Steve Hawkins - Founder, Baly Douglass Foundation]

We know how difficult it is for these families, we know how hard it is for the government to solve these issues so if our investment can be part of a solution for that, if it can help one child one family then obviously that's a massive return.

[Joanne Toohey - CEO, The Benevolent Society]

We would like to thank you visitors for investing in one of the first social benefit bonds in Australia and wanting to achieve great outcomes and impact for families. We recognise that this is a journey and we look forward to continuing to share the outcomes and the lessons learnt as we go along the way.

Benevolent Society really helped me understand that there are two pathways, you know, there is hope, I can study I can be the mother one - from having no confidence in being myself and a mother, to feeling on top of the world and even going beyond that to the point where I feel that I can do things where it seemed impossible to me before.

 

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