FAST (Families and Schools Together)

Infants (0-2 years)
Early childhood (3-5 years)
Middle childhood (6-12 years)
Parents
At-risk or vulnerable

Supporting Families and Parents
Create Strong Child-Friendly Communities
School Transition and Engagement

Families and Schools Together

School-based; home-based

Early intervention and prevention programme that helps children succeed by empowering parents, connecting families, improving the school climate and strengthening community engagement.

FAST delivery has been successful in the remotest of Indigenous communities in Australia through to schools and families in our capital cities.

Children aged 0-17 experiencing disruptive behaviours who at risk of education failure, and their parents/primary caregivers.

At the local level, FAST is run by trained 4-8 person FAST Teams comprised of parents, teachers and school representatives, and community-based professionals. Each FAST Team is representative of the population served, that is, consistent with the gender, ethnicity and culture of the participating families.

Each team is trained by an credited National trainer

Initially a consultative process in conducted together with FAST trainers and key stakeholders.

There are three phases in FAST:

• An outreach process in which trained FAST parent and professional facilitators invite families to participate in FAST through face-to-face visits at the family home and at their convenience.
• An 8-week (2½ hour school-based meeting) multi-family group process for 10-15 families facilitated by a collaborative, community based team (parent and professional facilitators).
• An ongoing two-year follow-up programme, FASTWORKS, consisting of monthly multi-family meetings of FAST graduates, which is run by the parents with the support of the FAST team.

The accredited trainer oversees an action reflection model of programme delivery.

Learn: FAST begins with learning. Prior to the first FAST Cycle, a Certified FAST Trainer conducts a comprehensive two-day program orientation to prepare FAST Team Members to run the program accurately and efficiently.

Plan: Occurs on site in the local community.

Do: Always occurs on site, with Certified Trainer offering on-going weekly monitoring and support to ensure programme integrity and consistent implementation.

Review: Occurs throughout the FAST process including team and family evaluation.

The cost varies according to mode of delivery, the location (urban, regional or remote) and a range of local factors. Contact FAST to get an indication of costs.

Phone:
Mal Galbraith (08) 8920 4355 - FAST NT Darwin
Mark Boonstra (03) 6262 5400 - Impact Communities Hobart

Website:
http://www.fastnt.org.au/
http://www.impactcommunities.org.au/families-and-schools-together/

Multiple studies including RCTS document positive behavioural outcomes at post-test, with at least one study indicating positive behavioural impacts at follow-up at least one year after the intervention ended.

Further information on research and RCTs can be found here: http://familiesandschools.org/why-fast-works/