In another challenging year globally and locally as the COVID-19 pandemic and response evolved, we are proud to present this report as an overview and summary of SHFPACT’s wide range of activities. The adaptive capacity and flexibility demonstrated by the SHFPACT team in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic set the organisation up well for responding to the high level of demand for clinical, education and training services that followed, and which was sustained across the whole financial year covered by this report and beyond.
It is challenging to report to SHFPACT’s members and stakeholders about a year as extraordinary as this one.
2019 ended and 2020 began for the Canberra community amid the environmental and personal impacts of a bushfire season that extended over many months, layering our city and the wider region in a blanket of smoke and ash. And many of our wider and organisational community were caught up as fires ravaged the South Coast, and threatened to reach our outer suburbs for the first time since 2003. That phase terminated in Canberra with a damaging hail storm, and was followed promptly by the COVID-19 global pandemic and public health responses that have dominated the rest of 2020.
IMPROVING SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH FOR THE CANBERRA COMMUNITY
STRATEGIC POSITION
SHFPACT is a non-government organisation working across the health, education and community services industries. Our key relationships and partners operate in the government, non-profit/for-purpose and commercial sectors. The organisation employs professionals with diverse qualifications and professional experience, including medicine, nursing, social work, education, health promotion, finance and administration, among many others.
SHFPACT achieves its impact through the provision of healthcare services, including counselling, directly to the community; and by strengthening community and workforce capacity through information, education and training services that build health literacy and skills in the areas of sexuality, relationships, and sexual and reproductive health.
Providing direct services ensures that the organisation’s industry knowledge and skills are relevant and current, and inform advocacy, health promotion and workforce development activities as well as deliver specialised, safe and respectful services to priority populations who may have limited access options to appropriate services.
In the absence of a national or ACT reproductive and sexual health policy or strategy, SHFPACT’s work interacts particularly with priorities and directions drawn from public policy on sexually transmissible infections (STI) and blood-borne viruses (BBV), women’s and men’s health, youth, disability, and social inclusion, amongst others.
SHFPACT is one of only a few non-government, non-profit organisations in the Canberra community bridging clinical services delivery, education and training, and health promotion work, and that is relevant and responding to health needs that affect the entire Canberra community.
2018 has seen the drawing to a close of the end of one cycle of strategic planning and the start of another. While we didn’t always predict some of the twists and turns along the journey, the strategic context and objectives set out in 2014 have served the organisation well.
Throughout 2018, Council has led a process of reflection on our strategic position and direction, one that will be continued and finalised into early 2019 with the incoming Council.
Our current funding agreement with ACT Health ends in mid-2019, and we look forward to the renewal of a service funding agreement that supports the organisation to respond to current and emerging community needs in reproductive and sexual health.
As a community-based NGO health service provider, SHFPACT, along with other health NGOs, has been affected by continuing significant change in our local health system environment. SHFPACT has worked with our colleagues to contribute, wherever possible, to advice and input to ACT Health as it navigates major internal restructuring and reform, to position our organisation to be a provider of choice in upcoming service commissioning processes. SHFPACT has worked hard to deepen our own understanding of the changing community health needs of the Canberra community, and to share this along, both to inform government and shape our own forward service planning. This process has largely re-affirmed our strategic goals, but demands that the details of how we navigate the coming years are anchored to a continued, robust understanding of these changing needs. We will continue to strengthen the systems that support our staff to be responsive to emerging needs, demonstrate our effectiveness, and facilitate our work towards common goals with partners and other stakeholders.
We have also worked with community sector partners to address gaps in the evidence base:
SHFPACT worked with AIDS Action Council and Hepatitis ACT, with the support of project funds from ACT Health, to produce a STI/BBV sector needs analysis report that explored the current and emerging contexts for this area of common focus;
We supported social research undertaken by Women’s Centre for Health Matters to seek and analyse the views of Canberra community women on reproductive and sexual health needs and services;
We supported community consultation by Women With Disabilities ACT that resulted in a needs and issues paper on contraceptive decision making for young women who need decision making support;
We worked with our interstate colleagues through Family Planning Alliance Australia to pursue common policy and advocacy goals for reproductive and sexual health in Australia, including contributing input to the draft national women’s and men’s health strategies.
We have been actively engaged in and supported local policy and legislative reforms addressing access to abortion, and proposed reform to sexual consent laws, and both led and joined community development activities that address sexual and intimate partner violence contributing our expertise in relationships education. And we worked with partners to review, hone and improve our shared work through programs like Sexual Health, Lifestyles and Relationships Program (SHLiRP) and the Enhanced Outreach STI/BBV Health Promotion & Testing project.
SHFPACT, with the continuing support of an expanded group of community stakeholders, successfully navigated the development and launch of a new model for continued support to school communities to welcome, include, and ensure the safety of same sex attracted, intersex, and gender diverse students, staff and families. From the political and media hot potato of 2016, to a widely supported launch of the ACT Safe and Inclusive Schools (SAIS) Initiative in early 2018, we have continued to emphasise inclusion, safety, equity, equality and participation as key principles worth defending against prejudice, exclusion and ignorance.
We have actively engaged supporters and the concerned alike to ensure that the Initiative’s purpose and approach are properly understood. We we are grateful for the unwavering support from community leaders in the ACT Government, and in the ACT Legislative Assembly across all party lines, who have supported this work and its importance in the Canberra community.
SHFPACT Council
The SHFPACT Council farewelled Jane Hadrill, Camilla Burkot and Alice Knight in late 2017 and welcomed many new members, after receiving many high calibre expressions of interest. This was the biggest single intake of new Council members in many years, and challenged the organisation to support their induction and orientation to the organisation’s strategic agenda, complex business structure, and priorities. Heidi Yates, Melissa Hobbs, Sarah Stringer, Eun Ju Kim-Baker and Alyssa Shaw were appointed to Council vacancies in December 2017.
During the course of 2018, the SHFPACT Council also saw the departure of longstanding Council members, including outgoing President Joanna Spratt, Vice President Matt Sammels, and Scott Malcolm. Both Matt Sammels and Scott Malcolm have served for many years, including in key Council Executive positions and as President of the SHFPACT Council. Joanna Spratt completed her PhD studies in 2017, and we farewelled her to pursue exciting career opportunities in New Zealand. The organisation is grateful to them all for their service, contributions, insight and humour in their leadership of SHFPACT in the last decade.
Janelle Weissman and Matthew Noonan have shared co-chair responsibilities with the support of the Council Executive, both stepping up into prominent leadership roles.
We were all very sad to learn in October 2018 that our colleague Eun Ju Kim-Baker had passed away, and extend our deep condolences to their family, friends and other colleagues.
We will miss them at the SHFPACT Council table, as others will miss them throughout the community.
Financial Performance
We are very pleased to build on last year’s small surplus, achieving another surplus result in 2017-18 of $156,811. This result is not attributable to one single factor. Rather, it reflects a number of factors including the successful navigation of program and revenue diversification strategies (such as the acquisition of the SoSAFE! Program), transitions to NDIS funded services, Council’s sustainability revenue generation targets, and some one-off recognition of revenue received in prior years. SHFPACT received one-off project funding from ACT Health in 2017-18, with the associated activities delivered by SHFPACT drawing on and increasing time by underutilised staff capacity in the organisation rather than requiring the employment of new or ongoing positions. The surplus result does not include underspent funds in any government grant/funding programs that were carried forward to the new financial year.
The surplus result is the first after more than a decade of underwriting losses to support low-fee access to clinical services in particular, which had become unsustainable in the context of major funding changes in 2016. The surplus assists the organisation to rebuild its balance sheet buffers towards Council targets to absorb and manage uncertainty or future financial pressures.
These targets include a current ratio of 2:1, and a minimum months-of-operating buffer in the range of 2-3 months. It is the intention of the organisation that consistent program surplus results will ultimately be reinvested in accessibility strategies for priority populations in line with SHFPACT’s purpose and mission, and enable the organisation to invest in new areas of work not supported by government funding.
The SHFPACT Council also draws Members’ attention to the creation of a reserve of $50,000 set aside to pay for our share of owners’ contributions to the upgrade of the elevators at 28 University Ave.
As the precise figure for this contribution was not known at the time, the auditors have suggested that it is better represented in audited financial reports as a reserve, rather than raising a contingent liability. Council and management expect to make this contribution in financial year 2018-19, where its expenditure will contribute to a currently anticipated deficit result for the next financial year.
Council acknowledgement of staff and volunteers
The people who make the organisation successful are its dedicated, professional and enthusiastic staff and volunteers. They turn the raw ingredients of commitment, skill, and their passion for reproductive and sexual health and rights, into a sophisticated suite of services, advocacy, collaboration and support that reaches across the Canberra community. SHFPACT’s good standing and reputation in the community stems from the commitment and care demonstrated in every encounter and engagement, whether in classrooms, clinic rooms, board rooms, or in the public square. And to those whose contribution may not always directly see the person it benefits, from the condom packs produced to the data entered into a computer, please know that it is equally valued as part of what helps make the whole production come together.
On behalf of the SHFPACT Council,
Council Co-Chair:Matthew Noonan Council Co-Chair:Janelle Weissman Executive Director:Tim Bavinton
The last year has seen the organisation engage in challenging restructuring to ensure a continuing high quality offer to the Canberra community and financial sustainability, and the consolidation following major changes in the funding environment.
After a period of uncertainty in funding, in January 2017 SHFPACT commenced working with ACT Education Directorate on shaping an ACT-specific model for continuing work started under the national Safe Schools Coalition Australia program providing support to Canberra schools and education programs to be safe, inclusive and welcoming of al students, regardless of sexual orientation, intersex status, or gender identity/presentation. This followed a decision last year made with our collaborating partners that continuing under national arrangements could not make sense in the ACT.
ACT Government support and commitment to maintain has translated into a development project that has involved continuing engagement from our collaborating health and community service partners in the old program model, and an expanded reference group and consultations with other stakeholders to ensure this support to school communities continues to reflect unique ACT contexts and needs as the ACT Safe and Inclusive Schools Initiative. SHFPACT recognises the political leadership and resource support shown by the ACT Government in this important area.
SHFPACT, like our sister family planning organisations nationally, stepped up to address the lack of information and confusion about changes to Australia’s cervical screening program, and the alarm that was generated about poorly understood risks to women’s health and lives. The delay in implementation of these changes, at short notice, from May to December 2017 also affected health service provision, health workforce training, and community-direct health information. Through social media and health information resources, and from October 2017 onwards a specific health workforce briefings and training opportunities, SHFPACT has attempted to ensure the Canberra community is supported. Nationally, family planning organisations also engaged in a very public debate to correct misinformation and misunderstandings about the changes.
Demand for training to support social safety for people with disabilities under the SoSafe! Program, acquired by SHFPACT last year, has continued to be popular, and we’re forging partnerships to provide support, tools and knowledge to people across the world. IN the coming year, we will be completing a major review and refresh of the primary resource material and framework, and developing new tools for implementation. The SHFPACT Education & Training team have developed several new groupwork, behaviour support and parent/carer support programs based on the concepts and tools provided in SoSAFE! Program. These services are primarily provided through NDIS plans for individuals, with small numbers of ‘scholarship’ places offered at no cost or free for those people without an NDIS plan and who cannot afford the fees. Through our training partnerships, we will look to share and expand these SoSAFE!-based activities with others nationally and internationally.
Inside our organisation, the SHFPACT Council and team worked through important restructures of programs and staffing to respond to our changing environment. Throughout, SHFPACT has endeavoured to minimise the impact to clients and community, and communication of changes to what can be offered and fee structures for previous funded work have been important challenges to meet. We have sought to identify new opportunities, and to minimise impacts of changes in our service delivery profile, especially for people with disabilities, and for access to clinical services for people on low incomes.
We’re pleased to have achieved a small surplus in this year’s financial accounts, after the implementation and consolidation of important budget decisions last year to achieve this result. SHFPACT will continue to work to increase this surplus result, so that we can channel retained earnings back into service-provision. We want to make sure everybody can use our quality health services, and we know that people who struggle financially have to make important decisions about how their limited resources are stretched, and can often go without when it comes to healthcare. SHFPACT will continue to do more to make sure nobody misses out on the high-quality information and services that enables them to enjoy safe and healthy sexual and reproductive lives.
Finally, and most importantly, we’d like to thank our staff and volunteers. It can never be said too often or too much: without your commitment, enthusiasm and specialist skills, SHFPACT would not be the respected, high-quality organisation that it is. Thank you.
