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Outreach and Community Education

The SSAT’s national outreach strategy is directed at improving knowledge and understanding of the SSAT in the Australian community, as well as providing a means of strategically managing key stakeholder relationships.

Efforts to promote the Tribunal include information and training sessions to Legal Aid solicitors, invitations to interested parties to observe Tribunal hearings and learn about the application process, and ongoing liaison with Welfare Rights. The Tribunal is also committed to promoting awareness of, and access to, review for Indigenous people.

Local SSAT offices also maintain ongoing relationships with local Centrelink and Child Support Agency management and staff to improve access to the appeal system.

As part of its outreach program, the Tribunal conducted a series of Value Creation Workshops around Australia in May 2004. These workshops provided a structured, facilitated feedback forum that involved both the applicants and the providers of our service. The report provided by the facilitators at the conclusion of the workshops has guided the Tribunal in identifying applicants’ most important overall needs in focussing on service improvement. More recently, the SSAT has developed a national feedback questionnaire for applicants to complete. The results of the questionnaires are being used to determine where and how the Tribunal can improve its service.

The Tribunal is very conscious of the limit on the resources it can devote to outreach and the balance it needs to strike between making people aware of the service the Tribunal can provide, without appearing to be ‘advertising’ for appeals.