Mutual Benefit: The Secret Sauce of Reciprocal Partnerships
University of Technology Sydney’s Centre for Social Justice & Inclusion is home to sector-leading programs for community engagement. As a 21st century institution, we strive for meaningful, equitable and impactful collaboration with the communities, grounded in reciprocity.
The UTS Social Impact team have experienced the challenges and benefits of long-term relationship building through its programs:
- UTS Shopfront, running since 1996, offers work-integrated-learning in non-profits
- UTS SOUL Award provides extra-curricular volunteering and pathways for student action
- The Social Impact Lab engages local communities on wicked issues affecting society
From this experience, the team have identified a key attitude and approach that have allowed them to develop long-term partnerships that have real impact across multiple contexts. This approach has proven vital through the disrupted COVID period and has allowed our university to be quick to adapt and to take meaningful community engaged action in response to a crisis.
If your teaching practice or research involves community members, join us to hear our approach to creating long-term sustainable positive change through your work.
Speakers
Dianne Moy, Social Impact Lab Lead, Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion, University of Technology Sydney
Dianne is a community engagement and program development professional, specialising in collaborative and participatory methodologies. Dianne has a Master of Design (Research) and grounds her work in placemaking techniques and community-led design – enabling community members to have a voice and partner in engagement and decision-making processes.
Dianne has extensive experience in working in areas of social innovation and urban sustainability, having worked for ten years with local governments and communities in Melbourne and Sydney. She has collaborated on international projects, and with universities, state government departments and the private sector. Dianne uses her design background to inform her engagement work, but also has an IAP2 certificate in Public Participation, and attended Deliberative Democracy training. Dianne was one of the co-founders of the Melbourne chapter of the Service Design Network.
Alex Connor, UTS SOUL Award Lead, Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion, University of Technology Sydney
Alex is a social impact practitioner specializing in community engagement and volunteering. Passionate about the power of people and organisations to drive positive change, Alex has worked across NFPs, community organisations and government, particularly in volunteering strategy. She now leads the UTS SOUL Award program, enabling students to demonstrate their social responsibility, increase their change-making skills while increasing the impact of the community sector.
While at UTS, Alex has created and evaluated programs for impact for both staff and students, and is also an experienced and enthusiastic trainer and facilitator, with a particular interest in social issues, leadership, communication, and sustainability.
Katie Blair, Research and Evaluation Specialist, Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion, University of Technology Sydney
Katie has extensive experience coordinating and undertaking complex and strategic research and evaluation projects. Katie began her career as a research assistant at Western Sydney University while completing her PhD in political science. Since then, she has worked extensively with academic, industry, government and non-government stakeholders to bridge the gap between the production of evidence and its use in policy and practice. She is particularly passionate about ensuring research is accessible and easy for practitioners to understand so it can be used to inform program and service design to improve the wellbeing of individuals, families and communities. Katie also has extensive experience working with academic, government and non-government agencies to build their evaluation capacity and to demonstrate the impact of their work. This experience ranges from evaluating state-wide government-funded programs to small local community programs. Katie excels at meeting stakeholders where they are and embedding monitoring and evaluation practices into their day-to-day work.