One Stop One Story Pilot – Family and Domestic Violence

3 million people in Australia live below the poverty line. People experiencing financial stress aren’t accessing available support, with 66% not knowing what help is available, and women with higher levels of financial stress more likely to have experienced family violence. When someone needs support from one service provider, they usually need support from many. Repeating their story to multiple providers and navigating often-complex systems causes stress and re-traumatisation. Negative service interactions lead to people less likely to engage in the future. The challenge was to reduce these barriers, bringing services to people who need them, when they need them.

Thriving Communities Partnership (TCP) brought together 30+ corporate, government and community organisations, alongside people with lived experience, to co-design the One Stop One Story Hub (OSOS). The OSOS is a world-first digital triage service providing people impacted by family violence, and their advocates, a single point to access support services in a secure way. Participating partners include banking, utility, telecommunication and transportation providers and community organisations. When people contact one organisation seeking support, they have the option of referrals being made to others, eliminating the need to retell their story and creating pathways to pro-active support, including financial hardship assistance.

In pilot phase, 400+ people nation-wide have been referred across 12 organisations for support between October 2021 and May 2022. Through the OSOS, people only tell their story once to access to cross-sector support. Easing the burden for humans, beneficiaries report being “ecstatic” about the support provided. The OSOS doesn’t just change the offering, it changes the system that offers it. For example, all OSOS organisations collectively agreed not to request evidence that someone has been impacted by family violence. Pro-actively engaging with people experiencing vulnerability also has commercial benefits, including reduced costs, increased trust and more engaged staff.

The OSOS was co-designed by a wide range of organisations across corporate, government and community sectors, collaborating on a new way of working by putting humans at the centre and leaving competition at the door. The co-design ran from September 2020 through to October 2021 and was underpinned by principles of relishing diversity, building equity, being open, mutual benefit, and being courageous. Lived experience was a crucial factor in holding us to account on the “Why” of this project. When designing the system and running into roadblocks and challenges, we could ask each other - “Is this what’s best for the human, or is this what’s best for the organisation?” It proved to be a constant source of empathy building, reminding everyone who they are working to support and bringing everything back to the human at the centre. The co-design process influenced high levels of trust across the OSOS partners, positively impacting perceptions of organisational ethics and competence, in some instances even overcoming previous contrary experiences. Collaboration and trust built within the co-design phase created the foundations to enable shared learnings and a willingness to engage amongst the OSOS partners during this pilot phase.