CASE STUDY
Wellbeing impacts of a financial resilience program in the Kimberley region.
What was the challenge?
The Wunan Aboriginal Corporation wanted to understand the wellbeing impacts of a financial resilience program they were delivering in the Kimberley region. The program provided financial counselling, capability and support services to local Aboriginal people.
This was a collaboration between the Interplay Project, Wunan Aboriginal Corporation, Ninti One and Good Shepherd Microfinance.
How did we help solve the problem?
We worked with the Aboriginal organisation and the community to co-design a tailored version of the Interplay Wellbeing Framework to meet their evaluation needs.
Based on the framework designed, relevant indicators were selected from the Interplay Project's suite of scientifically validated community indicators. New indicators were also developed to create measures of things not yet covered, like 'money knowledge' and 'financial resilience'.
A survey was designed and administered with program users by local Aboriginal researchers.
We applied our 'whole of system' approach to statistical analysis. This is called 'structural equation modelling' and it treats the data holistically. We call this, Interplay Mapping.
This Interplay Map shows the strongest pathways to wellbeing based on the data. The round shapes represent indicators of wellbeing. The lines represent the strongest pathways between these indicators. Only statistically strong lines are shown in this picture.
This is the story that it tells.
Empowerment is a key stepping stone that strengthens both 'financial resilience' and confidence in working with numbers and filling out forms (shown as 'numbers and forms').
This is the most interesting part of the map.
From here you can see that confidence with 'numbers and forms' leads to better outcomes in work and 'money knowledge', which goes on to improve mental health and wellbeing.
This means that if we try and teach people 'money knowledge' without also improving their skills and confidence with 'numbers and forms', the training may have limited success.
The most important thing that Interplay mapping shows here, is that to improve people's knowledge about money as well as their mental health and wellbeing, we also need to provide capacity development in working with numbers and filling out forms.
We need to look at the whole picture to understand how to create long term change.
— Sheree Cairney, Interplay CEO
Services
Co-designed a ‘story of change’ and evaluation methodology
Build evaluation capabilities at the grassroots level in communities
Created a tailored mobile survey app
Holistic data analysis to identify pathways for change
Evaluation data displayed visually on an Interplay Map
Interplay mapping to inform program design to optimise wellbeing outcomes
Do you want to understand what pathways lead to better program outcomes?
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