The accomplishment of Integrated Service Delivery in shared public spaces within Tasmanian Child and Family Learning Centres: A spatial and practice-based perspective
- Publication Type:
- Thesis
- Issue Date:
- 2025
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This study is located in the field of Integrated Service Delivery (ISD) and contextualised in providing support for families with young children, particularly those in disadvantaged circumstances. While the early years are crucial for development and well-being, disadvantaged families encounter complex, "wicked problems" that single services cannot resolve. ISD, integrating health, education, and community services, has long been a policy mainstay. However, current ISD approaches are often limited by an overemphasis on physical co-location, a focus on formal service delivery over parent needs, and a poor understanding of how integration truly unfolds. Existing research, largely evaluative and structural, views ISD as a static entity, neglecting practical descriptions of its accomplishment.
Existing research, largely evaluative and structural, views ISD as a static entity. What is missing are concrete descriptions of how service integration occurs in practice to meet families’ needs. To address this gap, my ethnographic study investigates how ISD is accomplished in the shared public spaces within three Child and Family Learning Centres (CFLCs) in Tasmania. My starting point is the concept of connection, which shifts understandings of ISD from that of a static property towards the idea of a live operational phenomenon that unfolds in informal spaces in practice. My research focuses on how ISD it is achieved, rather than what is delivered. To do this, I combine the concept of space as dynamic and socially constructed with practice-based theory to disrupt conventional thinking and offer a distinctive account of how ISD is accomplished in shared public spaces. This perspective offers a conceptual tool for making visible the intersecting trajectories that generate connections between families and services that underpin ISD.
Data were generated through participant observations, informal chats and semi structured interviews with CLFC parents, staff and volunteers. Thematic analysis of fieldnote and interview data generated three key findings. First, shared public spaces are more than just social spaces; they are produced by the practices enacted within them. These practices were hanging out, consuming and negotiating. Second, these practices generated intersecting trajectories that led to connections with depth that enabled the accomplishment of ISD. Third, the concept of soft-edged Integrated Service Delivery (SE-ISD) offers an alternative way of understanding ISD. SE-ISD softens the edges between services in the shared public spaces of CFLCs through relational approaches that enable consideration of families’ needs and perspectives to facilitate positive outcomes through access and engagement.
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