Working together to support women’s economic security

Insights from a formative evaluation of the SEED Project

At a glance

This report synthesises achievements and outcomes after two years of implementation, and highlights some lessons learnt from SEED. It also makes some recommendations to inform further iterations of the model.

Dive deeper

The SEED Project in Seymour is delivering significant outcomes focused on enabling women’s economic security and catalysing a collaborative place-based approach to addressing barriers to women’s economic security.

• In the two years since it was set up, the Hub has become a valued space for women to access tailored support, gain financial capability knowledge, learn skills and connect with other women.

• Programs offered at the Hub, such as Stepping Stones to YOUR Pathway and Change Makers, are strengthening women’s self-confidence, dignity and self-worth, resulting in increased motivation to pursue opportunities including employment and education.

• The SEED community investment committee (CIC) has been operating since early 2023 and has an action plan in place focused on collaboratively addressing barriers to women’s economic security in Seymour. Eleven organisations from diverse sectors were represented in the CIC and demonstrated a strong commitment to working together.

• Insights and evidence gathered through ongoing monitoring and evaluation work informed practice, ensuring that the model is evidence-based and the project is responding to women’s needs in the local context. Research and policy work has also helped inform practice, reframing issues, amplifying women’s voices in advocacy and generating evidence necessary to drive policy change to address women’s economic security.

Key lessons learnt

• A gender lens and multidimensional approach has worked well to ensure that the project is addressing both the individual needs of women and a range of structural factors that affect women’s economic security.

• Flexible funding has been essential to the project’s success. This has underscored the value of funding that enables innovative ways of working in place.

• Relationship building has been crucial to working with stakeholders and developing a shared approach to supporting women in Seymour. This can initially take longer than may be anticipated, especially in a greenfield site. Funders and organisations working in place must be willing to invest long term to accommodate relationship and trust building processes and to be patient for the process to evolve.

• SEED’s strong data collection framework enabled the adaptation of activities and approaches to suit women and the local context, optimising the project’s relevance and effectiveness.

• Integrating research, policy and practice through a BSL multidisciplinary team worked well to progress the ambition of the project.

Ways forward

• SEED Project is showing strong promise as a collaborative place-based initiative to support women’s economic security and financial wellbeing. For future programming, it is recommended that the project:
• Explore opportunities for integrating elements of the programs offered at the Hub into other relevant local services such as employment services. This will extend the project’s benefits to more women and continue to build stronger evidence of the effectiveness of the model.
• Continues efforts to mobilise stakeholders in other key sectors such as employment services to help progress efforts around opportunities and barriers to women’s employment in Seymour.
• Strengthen advocacy and influencing work to support ongoing calls for policy reforms to address government funding and program models that undermine collaborative place-based work.