1. Towards a futures strategy for the Victorian Community Services Sector A Knowledge Perspective Richard Vines Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare Alfred Felton Research Program

2. Acknowledgements Leaders within the Child and Family Welfare Sector Alfred Felton Trust Fund Telstra Foundation

3. What is a knowledge lens? How might this contribute to a “futures strategy”?

4. The child and family welfare sector as an example … leading to some generalisable principles for the community sector

5. Comments about the knowledge management community generally …..… uncertainty about how KM is defined …. …. And the primacy of the “end user’ – being people in community!

6. The Child Protection System … as a complex adaptive system Child and Family Services

7. Complex adaptive systems Individual agents (people) Adjustments to environment Actions (individual and collective) Inter-connected elements Adaptive to change Unpredictable Characterised by

8. Knowledge as an emergent property of a complex adaptive system Knowledge is relational … it is simply solutions to problems

9. Complex Adaptive System Flow on impact into related sub- systems and other service systems ???

10. Complex adaptive systems Patterns before

11. Emergent pattern? Complex adaptive systems

12. Emergent pattern?

13. Towards a Futures Strategy A knowledge lens

14. A knowledge lens leading to … …the idea of some general principles

15. Principle 1 Respect for the contextualised (inc localised) nature of knowledge A knowledge lens

16. Principle 2 The need for new mechanisms to identify emergent patterns

17. Principle 3 Negotiated agreements about intervening in complex adaptive systems A knowledge lens Including emerging approaches to mass capture of narrative and anecdotes

18. Principle 4 Support for organisational-knowledge capacity development See formal paper for full details

19. Support for organisational- knowledge capacity development Principle 4 ● Examination and support for ways in which CSOs absorb new knowledge (solutions to problems) ● Learning and development, including skills associated with working in complex adaptive systems ● Inclusion of the voice of the user in impact analysis ● Aging workforce issues ● Support for mobile workforce infrastructures and technology support systems to enable mobile / flexible work activities ● Connecting with historical vision and mission

20. Principle 5 Support for strategic research (and brokering research)

21. Principle 6 Specific support mechanisms for data management (and knowledge management?)

22. Principle 6 A knowledge lens Multiple data systems for different government agencies

23. Principle 6 A knowledge lens Multiple schemas for quality assurance

24. Principle 7 Strategic research associated with interoperability

25. A knowledge lens Principle 7

26. Thank you Richard Vines Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare Alfred Felton Research Program