Creating Tomorrow Today - Education Benalla

Tomorrow Today in Benalla

Benalla is a beautiful town that appears prosperous but, in fact, has high levels of disadvantage. 

In 2001, residents of Benalla formed Tomorrow Today, a community foundation that runs locally to address chronic issues in innovative ways. Its clear purpose is to help people in the Benalla community work together to create a stronger, more resilient, and prosperous rural community.

The 2007 Vinson report ‘Dropping Off the Edge: The Distribution of Disadvantage in Australia’[1]  placed Benalla among Victoria's 40 most disadvantaged areas. It highlighted that lower levels of educational attainment perpetuate the cycle of disadvantage. This was the catalyst for Tomorrow Today to form a community advisory committee to investigate and understand the issues limiting children's life chances.

Responding to the problems identified, Tomorrow Today developed an ambitious community-wide program to improve educational outcomes and create a better future for their town.

Based on the committee's recommendations, Tomorrow Today shaped the Education Benalla Program as a whole-of-community intervention with four objectives:

1. All children start school ready to learn
2. Literacy and numeracy levels measurably improve
3. Student levels of wellbeing improve
4. Family and community raise aspirations for students to go on to tertiary education or training.

The long-term aim is for Benalla's Year 12 completion rate to equal or exceed the Victorian average.

Whole-of-community approach

Tomorrow Today's approach encompasses creating change across all environments where children learn: family, school, and community.

The Education Benalla Program adopts a community development model of action, with cross-institutional support from 120 organisational partners including all schools (including early learning centres), community groups, sporting and hobby groups, businesses, government, and non-government agencies. Week on week, there are more than 80 volunteers. It engages families and children from birth, focusing on parent-child attachment and enhancing parent knowledge and skills and connection to social and professional support.

Addressing social disadvantage requires a long-term approach, combining many complementary projects and activities throughout each child's path to adulthood. The program takes a child-by-child approach from cradle to career, understanding that no single activity will achieve the desired outcomes.

Education Benalla Program is comprised of three sub-program areas – Early Years, Future Work and Collaboration. Each area has multiple activities and projects at any time.  Within the Early Years area, Parents Early Education Partnership (PEEP) recognises the vital role parents play throughout their child's education. Weekly facilitated playgroups help build parenting skills, with nursery rhymes, songs, stories, socialising, and structured activities all helping to establish children’s pre-literacy, numeracy and oral language skills.

80% of Benalla families attend PEEP for one or more terms

Kinder Pals is one of several programs run at preschools in Benalla. Trained volunteers use play-based conversation to help expand language skills.

18% improvement in Communication skills and general knowledge (AEDC data 2012 vs 2021)

Hands-on Learning (HOL) targets students in Years 5-12 and is designed to re-engage them in learning through activities that often help the wider community. This Future Work activity identifies young people at risk of early school leaving. The practical projects develop skills and aspirations under the guidance of artisan teachers.

93% of students stated that Hands On Learning was the key reason they were engaged and motivated to come to school

Connect9 is a community-based mentoring program that brings together trained volunteer mentors and Year 9 students to build community connections and foster new skills and hobbies. Contact with adult role models from the community provides an opportunity for young people to build aspirations to succeed at school, explore possible career pathways and set life goals.

The Full Impact project is a community approach co-designed and co-delivered with young people and local organisations/government to increase the power, agency and aspiration of Benalla’s young people.  The project provides a forum for 11 to 18-year-olds to meet weekly during term time to discuss issues of importance to young people and plan actions to improve the well-being of their peers. 'The Squad' is active in the community, organising a range of events in response to local issues as well as having their input sought by the local council on upcoming projects.

Activity in the Collaboration area involves working systematically with organisations across Benalla to achieve a whole-of-community focus on improving child development and educational outcomes. Tomorrow Today chairs the Benalla Early Years Network and the Benalla Future Work Steering Committee and hosts a range of workshops and forums.

Productive partnerships with schools and other organisations allow targeted financial support to give young people equal access to educational and community activities, including joining sports and hobby groups. By working collaboratively across government, community and business, issues such as developmental vulnerability, work skills, family support and school absenteeism can be addressed.

[1] In 2007, the first national edition of the research, Dropping off the Edge, was published by Jesuit Social Services. The rich and detailed Dropping off the Edge research has been used by federal, state and local governments to inform decision-making, tailor program delivery and inform practices over more than 20 years. It is also used by individuals and communities themselves to deepen their understanding of local challenges and advocate for change.

Philanthropic support

Philanthropy could easily have looked the other way in 2010 when Tomorrow Today began applying for funds to start rolling out the Education Benalla Program. Benalla’s community foundation was small and unproven. Tomorrow Today boldly claimed to have a local solution to an international problem—that children living in poorer areas do not reach their full life potential—and they bravely acknowledged that it would take 10 to 20 years to achieve their aim of turning things around.

The Regional Office of the Victorian Department of Education supported Tomorrow Today's initial research committing $150,000 for the first two years. This investment was important in securing early philanthropic support. In 2009, the R. E. Ross Trust committed $225,000 over three years to the new initiative, quickly followed by $275,000 over two years from The Ian Potter Foundation.

Nevertheless, the Foundation's grant was the result of eight months of consultation with Tomorrow Today to examine the best opportunities to support the Education Benalla Program and involved several site visits by the Foundation's program staff and Board members. Professor Tom Healy, a Governor of the Foundation at the time, articulated the reasons why the Foundation should support this initiative:

• There was whole-of-community buy-in (including fundraising)
• A long-term approach was adopted (10 years from the outset)
• The program was evidence-informed
• The program was designed holistically using a life course approach supporting children across multiple stages and domains.
• Strong leadership was in place ()
• They planned to use philanthropic support to leverage government support ­– federal, state, local – and further philanthropic support.
• They saw the value of non-financial support. In addition to the in-kind support offered by community members, they understood that connections made through philanthropy would strengthen their request for funding from other sectors.
• There would be continued input from philanthropic funders with their representatives sitting on the Education Benalla Program Management Committee.
• They deemed evaluation as critical to measuring impact and progress.

Since the Foundation's initial grant in 2010, it has awarded almost $2 million to support Tomorrow Today Foundation’s Education Benalla Program, making this the Foundation's longest continuous partnering engagement. From the Foundation’s perspective, the Education Benalla Program has been an exemplary initiative with outstanding local leadership underpinned by strong community support and cross-agency partnerships. The program has been and will continue to be instrumental in changing the lives of many families in Benalla.

Measurable outcomes

In 2011, an initial evaluation of the Education Benalla Program by the University of Melbourne confirmed some significant improvements in key indicators for groups of preschool children and Year 9 students, a dramatic decrease in suspension rates, and a huge jump in kids wanting to finish Year 12.

Subsequent evaluations and census data show improvements have continued:

• 7% decrease in children who are developmentally vulnerable (on one or more domains) (AEDC data 2015 vs 2021)
• 19% decrease in youth disengagement from school and work (ABC Census data, 2016 vs 2021)
• 10% increase in transition to work or study post-school[2]
• 350% increase in work experience placements at Benalla P-12 College (2019 compared to 2015)[3]

Impact

Tomorrow Today best sums up the impact the Education Benalla program has had on their community.

"We believed that it would take at least 10 years of active resourcing to achieve sustainable change in our young people's educational achievements.  Gratifyingly, our recent Evaluation shows increasing signs of positive change.   

"The Education Benalla Program is providing enormous benefit to Benalla’s children and young people, and their families by improving young people’s readiness for school and improving young people’s post-school pathways. It is also sustaining the community in many other ways, including providing capacity and collegiality that is helping keep educators in their jobs a little longer, increasing capacity of the education sector, and directly supporting families in need of financial aid." - (Ludowyk Evaluation 2023)

"Our journey is not without trials and tribulations. There are personalities and agendas to negotiate, false starts and occasional failures, and sometimes, the work is just plain hard. We rigorously and constantly check and recheck our work to ensure each component is achieving what we set out to achieve and continues to contribute effectively to the whole.  

"In the end, we have found that the secret to ongoing success is to keep drawing our collective eyes, hearts and minds back to those we are working for, the children and young people of Benalla, our present and our future.

[2] and [3] Tomorrow Today Foundation website: https://tomorrowtoday.com.au/approach-impact#impact