Publications and Reports

Sustainable Farm Families Impact Evaluation

Roberts Evaluation Pty Ltd was contracted by the Department of Primary Industries in 2008 to provide an external evaluation of the Sustainable Farm Families program.  A qualitative apporach was taken to explore in depths the impacts the program has had on participants and to attribute how the program has created or contributed to any changes observed in the data on health outcomes.

• October 2009
  Impact Evaluation 2007 - 2009
  
  Full Report (935kb)

Program Recognition

Sustainable Farm Families is extremely excited and proud to be recognised in a number of recent international and national publications.  Recently the program has been recognised by the International Council of Nurses, Australian Rural Health Education Network and the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission. 

This recognition enables the program to share its experiences and recognise our strengths from which we can build upon.  The program continues to strive to achieve a framework for addressing the health, well-being and safety of farming families across Australia.  The framework utilised can also be adopted to deliver programs across a wide range of industries.

• May 2009
  Delivering Quality, Serving Communities, Nurses Leading Care Innovations
  International Council of Nurses
  Sustainable Farm Families - Page 8
  
  
  Full Report (438kb)

The National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission was appointed in early 2008. The title Interim Report – A Healthier Future for All Australians – reflects the task at hand: to report on long-term reform for the Australian health care system.

The terms of reference clearly highlight the context for reform: Australia’s health system is in need of reform to meet a range of long-term challenges, including access to services, the growing burden of chronic disease, population ageing, costs and inefficiencies generated by blame and cost shifting, and the escalating costs of new health technologies.

Australia is not alone in tackling health system reform; most nations are facing similar challenges. While we agree that significant changes are needed to meet these challenges, we also recognise that our health system has many strengths upon which we can build. We are fortunate in having a universal health care system – with publicly-funded access to medical care, public hospitals and pharmaceuticals – a mix of public and private financing and health care provision, and a highly skilled and dedicated health workforce.

• December 2008
  Interim Report - A Healthier Future for All Australians
  National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission
  Sustainable Farm Families - Page 60
  
  
  Full Report (3,876kb)

The Australian Rural Health Education Netwrok has recently released 'A textbook of Australian Rural Health.'  The textbook edited by Siaw-Teng Liaw and Sue Kilpatrick describes how rural health professionals and rural communities are currently workign towards health rural communities.  The textbook is intended to be a national resource for all students, educators and professionals with an interest in rural health or a committment to working in the rural setting.  Sustainable Farm Families is extremely excited to have been recognised in this textbook, particularly with projects funded through the Joint Research venture for Farm Health and Safety, Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC)

• April 2008
  A textbook of Australian Rural Health
  Australian Rural Health Education Network
  Sustainable Farm Families - Page 53 & 53
  
  
  Full Report (6,279kb)

Evidence Base

As more Sustainable Farm Families programs are delivered it has become more evident that the program has been successful in changing farm family attitudes and knoweldge in imporving their health well-being and farm safety outcomes.

During the course of the Sustainable Farm Families projects, reports will be provided to enable monitoring of the projects current status and to celebrate its achievements.

• March 2009
  The Sustainable Farm Families Project: Changing attitudes to health
  The International Electronic Journal of Rural and Remote Health research, Education, Practice and Policy
   
  Publication (203 kb)

• May 2008
  Living Longer on the Land: Sustainable Farm Families in Broadacre Agriculture
  Broadacre Program
   
  Full Report (2.4meg)

• May 2008
  Living Longer on the Land: Case studies of the Sustainable Farm Families Program in the Sugar and Cotton industries
   
  Full Report (1.9meg)
  
  

Evaluation

The SFF program is also regularly evaluated through a number of different frameworks:
• On a participatory basis, through changes in clinical indicators;
• Training Competencies and changed behaviours
• Economic evalution; and
• External evalution

• October 2007
  Living Longer on the Land: A health program that works
  An economic evaluation of the Sustainable Farm Families Program
   
  Full Report (300kb)