Organisational history: from strategy to implementation
for Cafs
In 2020, Ashtree Projects was engaged by Cafs Ballarat to develop a strategy for managing the organisation’s history and records. Since delivering the strategy we have played a role in its activation, including ongoing engagement with stakeholders to guide decision making and the coordination and delivery of priority initiatives.
The organisational predecessors of Cafs include the Ballarat Orphan Asylum, the Ballarat Orphanage and the Ballarat Children’s Home. Cafs’ long and continuing history as an agency conducting ‘care’ of children in Ballarat is highly complex. It is a history which involves institutional power affecting the lives of thousands individual children and their families. Ashtree was fully supported by Cafs in this project to prioritise the perspectives, lived experiences, and recommendations of former residents in making decisions, setting directions, and designing initiatives.
What we delivered?
Phase 1: History & records strategy (2020)
Strategy outlining vision, values, purpose & objectives of history and records at Cafs
Draft collections management plan
Heritage records access procedure
Position Description for new role: History & Records Coordinator
Key messages for organisational communications around history
Phase 2: Strategy activation (2021-2022)
Exhibition curatorial framework
Communications and engagement strategy
Professional development sessions for current Cafs’ staff on learning from history
Content for new staff induction
Set of historical stories for ongoing release
Phase 3: Exhibition delivery (2022-2023)
Collaborative design and delivery of exhibition at Cafs
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