GLF Alumni Community Action Projects

Removing barriers:

The Australian Alliance to End Homelessness (AAEH)

GLF Alumni 2021 project team members:
Paula Davies, Saibeth Walls, Anthony Pryzibilla, Emily Kelly, Emma Fey and Linda Ritchie

The intent of the CAP group was to construct an unbiased perspective of the possible barriers impeding the potential of AAEH in achieving its vision and provide recommendations to maximise the capacity of AAEH to achieve objectives.

The team engaged in extensive research to gather background information regarding the roles, connections and the perspectives of stakeholders of the AAEH, including partners, board members, service providers, government representatives and groups aligned to the homeless sector were heard and included. Through an external lens, the team was able to develop a series of recommendations and implement an informed plan to contribute to the AAEH’s efforts to achieve positive outcomes for the societal issue of homelessness.

Engaging frontline staff:

Lighthouse Disability

GLF Alumni 2017 project team members:
Caprice Davey, Cate Gaston, Kelly Robson, Naomi Ebert Smith, Ross McLennan and Matt Salisbury

Lighthouse Disability provides 24/7 care to adults and children living with complex and diverse disabilities.The organisation wanted to change its culture so that frontline staff felt able to use their own initiative when making day-to-day decisions about clients and managing the houses they are based in.

As a result of the project, the Lighthouse Disability Leadership Team developed a deeper understanding of the underlying assumptions and beliefs of each stakeholder group involved. The CAP group proposed actions to assist frontline staff in developing and providing innovative services for clients.

Learn and Grow:

Playford International College

GLF Alumni 2016 project team members:
Andrew Naffin, Myron Mann, Natalie Hill, Dorata Clausen, Richard Bates and Matthew Woosnam

Playford International College students were having difficulties transitioning from school to their chosen career path, which was contributing to very high youth unemployment in the Elizabeth area.

To help address this, the CAP team decided to create a ‘Mini GLF’. Following interviews with teachers, parents, past and current students, the team identified gaps where students lacked support to develop adult self-learning skills. These are the types of skills that would enable them to build behaviour to help achieve short and long-term goals. The interviews also revealed that students lacked awareness of career and employment options because of minimal industry networks and work experience placements.

The CAP team then developed a program for selected Year 12 students, providing them with exposure to various industries, leadership experiences, life skills, and career and employment opportunities.

Moving through Homelessness:

Hutt Street Centre

GLF Alumni 2013 project team members:
Dave Adamson, Wayne Buckerfield, Mauro Farinola, Fiona Gill, Heather Gryst and Susan Jackson-Wood

Each member of the project team had undertaken a Community Placement activity at Hutt Street Centre (HSC), and was moved by the need as leaders to do more for less advantaged members of the community. The team’s initial idea was to enhance services being provided at HSC. However, from the outset, a key issue was to identify the adaptive challenge and move away from technical solutions. What began as a project to upgrade the centre’s amenities areas soon developed into several ideas with competing tensions.

The team finally settled on something ‘small enough to do, but big enough to matter’. From research and discussions with HSC’s executive team, it became clear that one of the key barriers to exiting homelessness was inadequate literacy and numeracy skills. The project then explored different delivery models to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes for the 70 per cent of HSC clients who struggled with these skills.

With the requirement to have research findings to help make informed decisions about future programs, the project has provided much-needed access to current research on literacy and numeracy programs for homeless people, evaluated the current offering at HSC, and suggested improvements where possible.

Missing in action:

South Australian Local Government

GLF Alumni 2013 project team members:
Kath Button, Madeleine Davis, Margaret Faulkner and Alex Gaut

The project team undertook research to tackle a major adaptive challenge facing local government in South Australia: how to increase the representation of women as elected members. Half of South Australia’s population is female, yet women only represented 27 per cent of elected members in local government at that time, with trends suggesting this would remain stagnant.

Read about the results of this project in the Dennis Mutton Award winners section.