Services

BATForce is a clear voice

There are many human services networks and planning structures within the region and the place of young people is a common thread across service and community planning.

BATForce has the history and the capacity to represent both young people and youth services on a wide range of structures, networks and planning processes, which, at present include:

• Barwon Primary Care Forum
• Barwon Regional Youth Affairs Network
• Community Agents Of Sustainability
• Human Services Portfolio forum
• Geelong Drug Action Plan Committee
• Geelong Safety Committee
• G21 - a regional alliance
• Geelong Strategic Health Plan Committee
• School Welfare Network Meetings
• Graffiti Task Force
• Local Learning Employment Network

BATForce has the sectoral development tools

BATForce has been working with a variety of sectoral development tools since it's inception in 1979. The most obvious tool, a monthly forum has been operating continuously throughout the whole period. Other approaches - such as a specialised program to link schools and community agencies are more recent. BATForce continues to adapt to the changing needs of the youth services sector.

At present BATForce manages the following development tools:

• School Focused Youth Services. This contract with Department of Human Services involves facilitating relationships between schools and youth support agencies in order to best meet the needs of school students most at risk of leaving school early. The program involves a structured series of linked planning forums and a catalytic brokerage scheme that provides financial support to locally designed and developed programs. The key driver of this program is the extent to which local activities are self sustaining and lead to improved opportunities and choices for all young people attending school.
• Monthly member forums on the first Thursday of the month. Few other alliances can boast a continuous record of direct engagement with the key sectoral asset - youth workers. These forums are a means accessing timely, relevant and practical information regarding the issues, services and developments within the sector - as they happen. Agencies encourage staff members to attend these forums as a means of both collecting and disseminating information. These forums have also proven extremely valuable as an orientation aid for new youth workers to the region or the sector - in a far more effective manner than a web page...
• Web site. The BATForce web site receives around 1400 hits per month and is an effective information sharing resource for agencies across the region - irrespective of attendance at meetings. All member agencies are encouraged to post items on the site, which is carefully maintained to ensure relevance and timeliness. The web site contains over thirty current information items under headings such as:
  • Bat Droppings - meeting notes and news
  • Conferences
  • Forums
  • Funding/Grants available
  • Meetings
  • New Publications
  • New Reports and Papers
  • New Service Announcements
  • News and Media Releases
  • Seminars
  • Training and Workshops
  • Upcoming Events
• Policy & Planning Processes. BATForce has developed many approaches to gathering information, ideas and solutions to presenting problems and driving practical improvement in service provision. At its most formal this is a process of Policy & Planning - a periodic ‘scan' of the sector to highlight the key opportunities for improvement. Less formally, any BATForce member who identifies a theme or issue for consideration is welcome to put that idea forward - thus emphasising the openness of the BATForce planning process.
• Consultancy and linking within the alliance membership. BATForce has the ‘know how' to provide consultancy support services to member agencies to support agencies with planning processes. In addition, BATForce routinely builds links between agencies in order to share resources, ideas and capacity.