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Annual Report
Rockhampton
Local communities are empowered
Ensuring Queenslanders can influence decisions that impact their lives
Home / Local communities are empowered
Projects for positive change
NTSSS (NDIS Training and Skills Support Strategy)
Delivered between 2018 – June 2022, this project built the NDIS workforce through research, support, and training, and was an initiative of the WorkAbility Queensland consortium. In 2021-22, the project launched two innovative and free self-managed eLearning modules on the Community Door eTraining platform:
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NDIS Quality and Safety Compliance Program (September 2021)
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Self-managing your NDIS Plan (November 2021)
QCOSS supported the NTSSS through the Workability Queensland consortium. The NTSSS was finalised on 30 June 2022, having delivered outcomes including:
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direct employment outcomes, including for First Nations people, people from CALD backgrounds and people with lived experience
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supported more than 900 individuals to complete training in an NDIS related qualification, skill set, microcredential or other unaccredited training course
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delivery of a wide range of resources, products and processes that provide a basis for ongoing workforce improvements.
Community Action for a Multicultural Society (CAMS)
Finalised on 30 December 2021, the CAMS program supported increased social connectedness, participation and access for community members from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds through addressing systemic challenges, raising awareness and developing capacity for inclusion.
Throughout the project, QCOSS regularly convened the Queensland Accessing Interpreters Working Group (QAIWG) and provided sector training to ensure greater and more effective use of interpreters’ services throughout Queensland.
The project delivered four capacity building workshops in November 2021:
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Crisis communication that works
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Listen up! We live here, too
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Interpreting matters
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Australia: 300+ languages, English is just one.
Place-based projects
QCOSS proactively manages partnerships with government, community-based organisations, registered training organisations, and other peak bodies to develop collaborative, sustainable local projects.
Targeted Outreach Project
The Targeted Outreach Project (TOP) undertook targeted outreach in communities across Queensland to identify, support and refer potentially eligible applicants to the Queensland Government’s Assessment and Referral Team (ART) to apply for the NDIS.
Concluding in June 2022, the project focused on ensuring that hard-to-reach or marginalised people with disability in Queensland were identified, informed, and intensively supported.
TOP outcomes:
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coordinated 2,472 engagement and capacity building activities
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worked with 8,608 individuals across the social service sector
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engaged with 4,500 organisations
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hosted 14 Local Level Engagement Groups, with 241 organisations participating
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engaged 21 Local Champions with disability across Queensland.
Biggenden
Place-based
Community of Practice
With place-based approaches, we have opportunities to ensure the views of people with lived experience are consistently and meaningfully integrated into service design and delivery.
QCOSS’s Place-based Community of Practice increased to 915 members during 2021-22, with three meetings held:
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Remote communities: Keeping our communities healthy (July 2021)
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Ensuring the voices of people with lived experiences are heard (October 2021)
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Housing affordability and homelessness: Place-based approaches to promoting housing security and addressing homelessness (November 2021).
Gold Coast Housing
and Homelessness Project
QCOSS is an active partner in the Gold Coast Homelessness Network, working to deliver the Service Integration Initiative and to end homelessness on the Gold Coast.
As Regional Care Coordinator for the project, QCOSS works closely with the network to enhance engagement between services on the coast – encouraging collaboration and building the sector’s capability to create a more holistic response to homelessness.
Launched at the 2022 Gold Coast Homelessness Symposium in March 2022, the Gold Coast Zero Campaign brings community organisations, government departments, and community members together to end homelessness on the Gold Coast.
Using the Advance to Zero methodology, together with other communities of the Australian Alliance to End Homelessness, the campaign delivers coordinated responses, real-time quality information and collaborative advocacy to ensure homelessness on the Gold Coast will be rare, brief, and non-recurring.
L to R: Carmel Haugh (Brisbane Zero), Maria Leebeek (Gold Coast Homelessness Network), Ryan O'Leary (QCOSS)
Gold Coast Housing Network COVID-19 Vaccination Response
As Queensland’s COVID-19 vaccination drive ramped up in September 2021, the Gold Coast Homelessness Network (GCHN) coordinated mobile vaccination clinics to protect some of the most vulnerable members of the Gold Coast community.
Between September and December 2021, the GCHN held 35 vaccination clinics for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness on the Gold Coast, at Ashben Medical Centre and community organisation hubs. 215 people attended the clinics.
The collaborative approach to enable access to vaccinations has continued throughout 2022 with regular clinics held at key service delivery hubs.
Queensland Resources Industry Development Plan (QRIDP)
QCOSS partnered with Rowland to develop and deliver a Consultation Program for the development of a QRIDP, feeding back local perspectives to the Queensland Government, and helping communities find pathways out of dips in productivity resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
QCOSS and Rowland held eight in-person engagement sessions in Mount Isa, Chinchilla, Rockhampton, Townsville, Mackay, Brisbane, and Moranbah, as well as one online – with 180 people attending in total. A further 10 interviews were undertaken by phone.
The Hon. Scott Stewart MP, Minister for Resources, attended each in-person engagement session (excluding Rockhampton) to welcome participants, and provide background and context on the development of the QRIDP.
Mount Isa
Townsville
Queensland Program of Assistance to Survivors of
Torture and Trauma (QPASTT)
In November 2021, QPASTT commissioned QCOSS to design a participatory evaluation for a pilot Youth Voice project in Townsville. The main objectives of the evaluation were to measure progress towards the targeted aims of the pilot and to build the evaluation capacity of young people participating in the program.
QCOSS co-designed the program’s
theory-of-change and evaluation methods with a group of 17 young people in Townsville between the ages of 15 and 25, and QPASTT staff. The evaluation measured young people’s satisfaction with the program, as well as impact on young people’s self-development, knowledge, communication and leadership skills.
QCOSS workshopped insights collected through data with program staff to identify key areas of strength and improvements.