The Victorian Government’s Early Intervention Investment Framework (EIIF) is helping guide early interventions to improve the lives of Victorians and deliver better outcomes across the service system.
By linking Government’s funding to quantifiable impacts both for people using the services as well as the service system, EIIF guides investments to where timely assistance for Victorians will improve life outcomes for individuals and reduce pressure on acute services.
The 2024-2025 Budget announced $1.1 billion for early intervention initiatives that will deliver targeted, effective assistance to address people’s needs. The Victorian Government has invested $2.7 billion through EIIF to date, with more than $3 billion anticipated to be generated in economic and financial benefits.
These investments are estimated to generate benefits from both:
- improved client outcomes for Victorians across a range of different cohorts, including people experiencing homelessness, families whose children are at risk of being placed in care, disengaged young people and people living with acute mental illness or chronic health conditions
- system-wide impacts from reduced acute service usage which will be reinvested in future EIIF initiatives and improved outcomes for Victorians.
Framework paper
With EIIF now embedded in Victoria’s annual state budget process, Government aims to share more about its approach to early intervention through the Framework paper:
The Framework paper discusses the origins of EIIF, the importance of measuring impact through outcomes and avoided costs, and how Government is continuing to grow EIIF’s effectiveness and re-balance the system toward more early intervention over time.
Find out more about the initiatives Government has funded to date through EIIF:
Client Pathways
The Victorian Government announced the Client Pathways initiative in the 2023-24 Budget in response to feedback that the social services sector would value greater public sharing of data. Client Pathways reports present data insights on the use of government services by people who are at risk of or experiencing social disadvantage.
Read more about this initiative on the Client Pathways reports page.
Co-design and EIIF
Co-design between departments and the social service sector is an effective way of building stronger early intervention proposals. Co-design can harness the expertise and insights of service providers and enable more robust development and tracking of outcomes.
Some of the strongest EIIF initiatives funded in recent years have been developed through co-designed processes. DTF welcomes more co-designed early intervention proposals and has prepared the ‘Co-design and the Early Intervention Investment Framework - Guidance paper’ to facilitate engagement between departments and service delivery agencies.
Further information can be found in the following Guidance paper:
Supporting papers
The Guidance paper has been informed by the insights of the Centre for Excellence in Children and Family Welfare (the Centre) and the Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS) through their respective pieces of commissioned work.
VCOSS’s ‘Collaboration on the Early Intervention Investment Framework - Recommendations and toolkit’ provides a framework and principles to guide collaboration for early intervention between service providers and departments, and tools to support the process:
The Centre’s ‘EIIF: Client Outcomes Measurement’ aims to strengthen collaboration between departments and child and family service providers on EIIF business cases, with a focus on the client outcome measurement and data:
Additional research on EIIF
These papers each provide a perspective on how to support the future development and refinement of EIIF over time. We note they are independent research and do not represent the views of the Victorian Government or DTF:
Further information
For further information on EIIF, please contact earlyintervention@dtf.vic.gov.au.
Find out more about how the Victorian Government is also delivering Partnerships Addressing Disadvantage.