Through the Advisory Our Town amplifies initiative based learnings and evidence to influence broader shifts in policy, systems and funding flows by:
Building trust and relationships between community members doing the work and key parts of the systems.
Creating a collective voice informed by diverse backgrounds and perspectives.
Understanding roles in creating change at individual, community and systems levels.
Co-creating pathways for community based evidence to inform policy decisions.
"We want to create the conditions that move us from ‘solutions policy’ to ‘enabling policy’. This requires trust, courage, vision and sharing of power."
Recent Areas of Discussion
The deep cultures and conditions that Our Town communities are wanting to address - identity, connection, creating safety and belonging, and building social capital.
The need to shift how top down approaches are aimed at ‘fixing’ communities with bandaid solutions to instead invest in policies and programs that enable communities to design responses and approaches built on deep knowledge of their communities and existing strengths and assets.
What we should Stop, Start, or Keep in Regional communities to improve mental wellbeing.