Change the Story

After 30 years of community engagement, a new question emerges - where to from here?

Shopfront has survived changes in leadership, funding pressures, shifting university priorities and enormous changes in the communities it serves. So what has allowed it to endure, and what will it take for programs like Shopfront to continue into the future?

In this episode, we explore how community engagement can become more than a collection of projects and partnerships. We reflect on what happens when engagement is embedded into the fabric of a university, how institutions can support and reward this work...

What happens when learning leaves the classroom and enters the real world?

Recorded at Shopfront's 30th anniversary celebration, the final episode in this special series brings together founders, academics, community partners and former students to reflect on what happens when universities and communities work together.

Through a live panel discussion, they explore the value of community-engaged learning from different perspectives. Community partners talk about the practical challenges facing the sector and the opportunities created through university partnerships. Academics reflect on the moment students encounter social issues not as theories, but as lived realities. Former students...

Universities are often described as places of teaching and research. But what responsibility do they have to the communities around them?

In this episode, we move beyond individual projects and explore a bigger question: what can 30 years of community engagement teach us about the relationship between universities and the communities they serve?

Drawing on perspectives from Australia, the United States, Germany and the Netherlands, we explore ideas of public purpose, co-creation, mutual learning, trust and the growing global movement for community engagement in higher education.

Hear how universities can move beyond seeing themselves...

How did a small university program become a bridge between students, academics and communities for more than 30 years?

In this first episode, we explore the origins of UTS Shopfront and the ideas that shaped it from the beginning. Through stories from founders, community partners and former students, we hear how collaboration, trust and a commitment to social justice helped create a program with lasting impact.

From preserving overlooked histories to supporting emerging organisations, we learn that the most enduring outcomes are often not the projects themselves, but the relationships built along the way.

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What if some of a community's greatest strengths can't be captured in a survey, a spreadsheet - or even a map?

If Episode 3 encouraged us to see the wider system, this episode invites us to look more deeply into lived experience.

Host Dr. Katie Blair is joined by Dr. Barbara Doran, an arts-based researcher and educator, to explore body mapping - a creative participatory method that helps people express experiences, knowledge and strengths that are often difficult to put into words.

Barbara reflects on the limitations of traditional community engagement approaches, arguing that...

What happens when we stop planning for communities and start listening to them instead?

Bringing together the themes explored throughout the series, host Dr. Katie Blair is joined by community builder and youth advocate Giane Cole to explore the Harwood Approach - a philosophy of community engagement built on one simple idea: before we plan, we need to listen.

Drawing on decades of experience working alongside young people and communities, Giane reflects on how genuine community conversations can shift perceptions, build trust and create lasting change. Through stories from her own practice, she describes how...

What if the very first question we ask determines everything that follows?

In this episode of Mapping What Matters, host Dr. Katie Blair is joined by social impact practitioner and systems thinker Mitra Gusheh to explore Appreciative Inquiry - a strengths-based approach that begins not with problems, but with possibility.

Mitra reflects on how asset mapping has evolved from a radical, community-led practice into something that is often reduced to lists, inventories and data collection. Through stories from her own work, she asks whether we’ve become so focused on identifying assets that we’ve forg...

How can we move beyond mapping what exists to designing the futures our communities need?

Having explored strengths-based thinking in the previous episodes, host Dr. Katie Blair is joined by Professor Martin Tomitsch to ask a different question: what happens when we zoom out and understand the systems that shape communities?

Martin introduces listeners to life-centred design, an approach that expands our focus beyond individual people to include relationships, ecosystems, institutions and future generations. While identifying community strengths remains important, he argues that real change requires us to understand the wider systems in which those...

What is asset mapping and why is it time to rethink it?

In the opening episode, host Dr. Katie Blair is joined by Professor Amanda Howard to explore the origins of asset mapping and the ideas that shaped the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) movement.

Amanda traces the history of ABCD back to the pioneering work of John McKnight and John Kretzmann, who challenged the dominant deficit-based approach to community development by arguing that every community already possesses the knowledge, relationships, skills and resources needed to create change. Amanda explores how this simple shift - from...

In this final episode, we explore what it means to be colonisers on colonised lands.

If we’re migrants from a colonising country like Japan, are our perspectives and connections to First Nations peoples different? We hear from two Japanese Australians, whose ancestors were involved in the Pacific War.

How does carrying this personal history shape their sense of belonging? What can we all do to foster a more responsible or ethical sense of belonging?

Guests

Tofa Amanda Moors-Mailei is a Sāmoan educator, strategist and nationally recognised equity leader in Aus...

Saying an Acknowledgement in our mother languages inspires us to learn more about First Nations histories and cultures.

But many migrants and new settlers claim that they know little about First Nations ways of doing and being.

How can we work together to educate each other?

Guests

Nema Madnani is a higher education professional with experience in student equity, project co-ordination and community engagement. In her past roles, she contributed to initiatives focused on inclusion and reducing barriers within education. She cares deeply about staying connected to her cultural roots and...

How are languages that have been dormant being revived by First Nations peoples?

We hear from Dr Lachlan McDaniel and Professor Lindon Coombes of the Jumbanna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at UTS about their personal journeys with language.

Are we making any progress in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language revival?

And why is language revitalisation important to non-Indigenous Australians?

Guests

Lachlan McDaniel is a proud member of the Kalari Clan of the Wiradjuri Nation. He currently serves as Associate Dean of Research at the Jumbunna Institute...

How has English dominance marginalised First Nations knowledges?

We hear from Gudanji/Wakaja author and academic Dr Debra Dank about how Aboriginal people’s expressive practices and deep relationships to Country are being erased.

How can we learn to listen to Country, to the ‘non-human utterances’ of birds, the wind, the rain?

And how do we listen to Country with our whole bodies, not just our ears?

Can we discover our own embodied wisdom, and how does this relate to our sense of belonging on this continent?

Guests

Carm...

What does embracing multilingualism sound like?

In this episode, we hear from two poets who challenge the dominance of English by creating bold, multilingual poetry.

How do these poets use language to disrupt, to heal, to remember, and to imagine a different, more ethical way of belonging in Australia?

Guests

Esita Sogotubu hails from Fiji and is the Employability Manager at UTS Careers. Her traditional roots are in Vunuku, Moala, Lau with maternal links to Nayavu, Wainibuka, Tailevu. She is a former international student who has over 15 years experience as a...

What happens when we say an Acknowledgement of Country in our mother languages?

Would it feel different? More meaningful?

Does it change the way we connect to First Nations peoples and cultures?

We discovered that a multilingual Acknowledgement opened a door to deeper, and sometimes difficult conversations about colonialism, race, and what it means to belong in Australia today.

Guests

Violet Laforteza Kennedy is Elaine’s Daughter.

Maria Eleanor Carbonell is Elaine’s Mother.

Nema Madnani is a higher education professional with experience in student equi...

Around 350 languages are spoken in homes across Australia, yet we see ourselves as an English-speaking country.

And we tend to understand Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and cultures primarily through English and Western concepts.

Let’s challenge this dominance of English.

My Language My Country is a six-part series that asks what changes when we approach Country through the many languages we speak.

Life’s Lottery is changing.

Change the Story is the next chapter - a podcast about what it takes to create real social change.

Where Life’s Lottery explored how inequality shapes our lives, Change the Story asks the next question: what are we doing about it?

Hosted by Amy Persson from the University of Technology Sydney, hear stories from people working to change systems from the ground up: community leaders, researchers, activists and practitioners.

Through short series and special conversations, you’ll hear big ideas, urgent debates, and practical examples of com...

Jeni Whalan hosts a discussion on the recent commitments from both NSW and Victoria to deliver a year of universal play-based learning for children in the year before they start school.

As well as transforming early childhood education, the goal is to build the sector workforce and further boost productivity by better supporting working parents.

Leslie Loble, the co-chair of the Council on Early Childhood Development and Amanda Robbins, Managing Director of Equity Economics, outline the significance of the announcement and what it’s going to take to deliver this ‘triple dividend’ over the next ten ye...

In this bonus episode, hosts Jeni Whalan and Glyn Davis examine the insights gained across this season of conversations about putting children at the centre of good public policy.

They discuss the frustrating gap between knowledge and action when it comes to shifting the dial towards more positive outcomes for all kids.

Without political leadership, meaningful consultation and targeted, place-based responses, many well-intentioned measures fail to make an impact. So is there now enough momentum to bring about real change?

We also hear from young people from the Northern Rivers region of NSW...

‘Never again’ were words that echoed around the world in the wake of the second world war.

Organisations were formed with the explicit aim of respecting and promoting international cooperation, aid and development. Only a few decades later, we have seen the first increase in poverty for a generation. Why?

And why does inequality, conflict, and the impact of natural disasters still have such a disproportionate impact on children, especially those forced to leave the countries they call home?

Kevin Watkins has spent his career speaking up for marginalised people in some of the...

First Nations children in Australia are some of the most disadvantaged and disenfranchised in our society. But they’re also on a journey of discovery, healing and strength through culture in response to the devastating impact of colonisation.

Our guest host for this episode is Leila Smith, the CEO of the Aurora Education Foundation, which works to improve the educational outcomes of Indigenous students.

Leila sits down with two other change-makers, Lawyer, Mum and former care-kid, Kirsten Gray, and Barrister and campaigner Tim Goodwin.

What’s working and what’s not to improve the od...

We know what children need in their first five years to develop to their full potential, so why isn’t action around this at the top of the national agenda?

Former Premier and South Australian Minister for Children, Jay Weatherill, leads the Thrive by Five campaign, which seeks to change that. He’s advocating for a universal, high quality childcare system for all Australian children.

What would it take to get the states and the Commonwealth to cooperate and hasten the pace of reform to improve kids’ outcomes and better support parents and carers?

Ebon...

The first five years of a child’s life are crucial for developmental outcomes and long term health. Paediatrician and leading child health researcher, Professor Sharon Goldfeld, argues we need a radical redesign of how families can be best supported during a child’s early years.

She outlines the need for creativity in public policies to address the growing disparities in child health and wellbeing - and she’s excited about the possibilities.

We also visit the Think+DO Tank in Western Sydney, a neighbourhood hub that brings together creatives, psychologists, and multilingual community connectors to cra...

We debrief the 2022 Federal Budget to explore how children are reflected in the national economic plan.

Amanda Robbins and Alicia Mollaun from Equity Economics share their analysis of the implications for kids and families and explore how the Budget process could better deliver big picture reform for those without a seat at the table, or a vote at the ballot box.

As some nations explore the use of child-centred budgets, what’s the best way to use this annual accounting process and public spending to inform good social policy and make real improvement to kids’ live...

We live in a wealthy nation but the experiences of Australian children are diverse, with many experiencing real challenges in their everyday lives. Two years into the pandemic, there are strong concerns about the impact on kids and the cost to their wellbeing, especially for those who were already behind.

We hear from National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds, who is calling for a concerted effort to elevate the rights, needs and voices of children in the national conversation. She wants action around systems that affect our kids and she’s putting political leaders and policy makers on n...

In season 2 of Life’s Lottery we explore how we can best support and back children through better policy making and public investment.

How do we create a society where all kids can thrive? Join us for a series of thought-provoking conversations about how to put children at the centre and why it makes sense for all of us.

New name

This podcast is now called Change the Story.

For more information about the original Life's Lottery season 2, see https://www.paulramsayfoundation.org.au/news-resources/lifes-lottery-backing-kids

Credits

Mu...

If we want to inform better public policy to end poverty and disadvantage, hard data and facts are more important than ever.

This sets up both a challenge and an opportunity for organisations as philanthropy in Australia develops even further. In this episode, we draw together the threads of our earlier conversations.

We talk to Susan Urahn, from the Pew Charitable Trusts, about philanthropy’s role in bringing diverse groups together and governments to the table. She shares her insights from over two decades of work as a pioneer in the field, especially in relation to...

No major social problem has a single cause so why would a single approach or organisation be able to solve it? Collective Impact starts with social objectives that are agreed upon across all sectors of society.

This episode considers the idea at the heart of Collective Impact: that large-scale social change comes from better cross-sector coordination rather than from the isolated intervention of individual organisations.

How does abandoning individual agendas and short-term solutions kick-start long term processes of social change?

Matthew Cox shares the experience of building Logan Together from the grassroots up...

Most people in jail have experienced disadvantage at some point in their lives, and it’s a legacy that often passes from parent to child.

Could transforming policies and systems for parents in prison reduce the intergenerational transmission of offending and disadvantage?

What can help prisoners maintain strong relationships with their children, and why are these investments worth it? Might this be a way to ensure a prison sentence becomes an offramp to break the cycle of disadvantage?

This episode examines current Australian research into the experience of mothers in the criminal justice sy...

We examine systems change and possibility thinking with a leader in the field.

Charlie Leadbeater is a creative systems innovator who works with organisations around the world to address long term problems, such as unacceptable rates of poverty.

He says it’s time to reframe social issues to create meaningful solutions that are driven by a more inclusive set of values.

Can we imagine a place for love and creativity in policy innovation?

This approach has influenced the Family by Family project run by the Australian Centre for Social Innovation. We me...

Australians believe our country is the land of the fair go. A meritocracy where if you work hard you can be successful, no matter what circumstances you were born into. But how true is this? Is intelligence and hard work really enough to break out of a cycle of disadvantage?

This episode interrogates the idea of meritocracy and how it was established in the Australian context with Alison Pennington from the Centre for Future Work.

We also hear from the author and Saturday Paper social affairs journalist Rick Morton. He questions the reality of merit...

Birth is a throw of the dice. The consequences can last a lifetime. A child born into disadvantage today will struggle to break out in adulthood - no matter how hard they work.

Life’s Lottery is a podcast about new ways to break the cycle of disadvantage, from the Paul Ramsay Foundation in collaboration with UTS Impact Studios. In conversation with policy and research leaders, expert practitioners and people whose lives have been touched by disadvantage, we’ll look towards a brighter future.

After almost two years of upheaval caused by the Covid pandemic, how...