Best Practice & Research

As an organisation we are committed to providing quality services based on sector standards. To that end, we are currently undertaking a quality improvement process with a view to accreditation in 2008.

Windermere is well placed to conduct research into areas in which we are considered a specialist, such as diverting families from protective services, building resilience and wellbeing in severely disadvantaged children, family violence counselling, links between family day-care and prevention of family breakdown, providing therapeutic, emotional and practical support to children and adults with a developmental delay or profound disability . To this end, we are building formal partnerships with Melbourne University, Monash University and RMIT with the aim to establishing an integrated research unit within Windermere.

In our quest to understand the needs of emerging Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities for our Victim Assistance & Counselling Program, Windermere has taken a lead role in developing an integrated CALD network for the whole Southern Region. This network was established to research specific issues for community organisations like Windermere in tailoring services to be accessible to CALD communities.

Our research shows that whilst there is a lot of specific support for newly arrived migrants, mainstream services like ours might not be appropriate for them after they move beyond the settlement period. As a result, we have developed a detailed CALD strategy to ensure that these potential clients see us as relevant and accessible. We will be measuring our success in this endeavour over time.