VECO Online Guest - Bright Futures for Young Australians

This summary is adapted from the posting to the bright-futures discussion list on Wednesday May 30, 2000.

Eric Sidoti had the an unenviable task of leading the discussion in the final week!

"Bright Futures represents an attempt on the ASTF's part to encourage us all not just to reflect on where we are but to try to take some hold on where we are going"
Eric Sidoti, posting to Bright-Futures discussion May 19, 2000

Eric’s insights into the big picture agenda and how policy in the school to post school transition area overlaps and parallels policy in other areas, have added a special layer and context to the fabric of discussions.

That context is one that is outside the realm of most practitioners’ day to day experience but is very important in terms of practitioners being aware of where their work fits into the scheme of things. Perhaps this is why discussion as such was less lively in that last week?

Thank you to all of our guests - Harris van Beek, Wayne Craig, Joy Short, Josephine Lynch and Eric Sidoti, and to all those who
participated whether through actively posting messages or through initiating discussions in their workplace. I encourage you to pass on any useful outcomes from these.

I would also like to acknowledge the role that Dione McDonald from the ASTF has played in helping prepare for this event and in keeping track of the discussion.

Last but not least, thank you to all those "lurkers" who one way or another gave feedback about how much they were enjoying the postings and how much debate and discussion had been provoked in board rooms and workplaces.

The discussions took place over a period of time that saw a
Commonwealth budget in which a commitment to funding SWL for another four years was given, online invasions of "I Love You" worms, and finally reconciliation week - a symbolic mix of happenings!

The earlier three summaries capture the essence of the discussions to date and the issues raised. To sum up in a general sense, this event has shown that the general thrust of Bright Futures has wide acceptance among practitioners - after all it is in major part written from extensive consultations with practitioners. However there is a significant degree of hesitation perhaps even mistrust, about how some of the recommendations might translate to reality - to paraphrase "it’s a bit light on in implementation detail". Of course, it could be argued that this is predictable given the complexities involved.

Eric Sidoti pointed out other
recent Government initiatives in Victoria and Queensland that describe such flexible partnership arrangements in other contexts.

Practitioners have clearly stated that they want to see "local variation" as a reality along with flexible measures of outcomes.

It is clearly up to the political process and the local decisions at systemic level to arrive at ways of doing and ways of knowing that meet these requirements - perhaps a social "fuzzy logic" is called for.

So what has been gained from this discussion? Hopefully a much greater awareness and understanding of the full context of the Bright Futures report, the opportunity to have a direct say to those who influence policy and much sharing of how the day to day issues are dealt with.

This will not be the only forum in which Bright Futures discussions take place but it has been a powerful one in tapping directly into practitioners’ realities and hopes. Harris has made an open invitation to contact him with feedback and comment but don’t leave it too late!