Sydney and Melbourne Local Network Advisory Groups are looking for engagement practitioners within the IAP2A member base who are interested in joining the advisory group which will convene monthly. The group in partnership with the IAP2A membership team is collectively responsible for the long term strategy of the Local Network program, which is a critical component of the “Strengthening Engagement Networks” pillar.

It has been a difficult month. As the bushfire emergencies continue throughout Australia, and with the recent tragedy on White Island in New Zealand, I understand that many in the IAP2 family are working hard with communities to negotiate the difficult and distressing task of negotiating the journey of recovery.

Call me old-fashioned but … one of my pet hates is the seemingly ubiquitous use of the term “the community” in any general reference to “all of them who are not us”, regardless of the organisation or context.  It’s as if it’s become a proper noun.

At the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), we believe that good ideas have no borders. This is why, as the largest philanthropy in the United States focused solely on improving health and health care, we actively search the globe for the best ways to advance health in local communities. We want to learn from the most effective health-related programs, policies, and approaches used in other countries and adapt them to use here at home—and also share with other countries the best practices we have identified in the U.S. Our ultimate goal is to build, with our many diverse partners, a Culture of Health in America, where everyone—no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money they make—has the opportunity to live their healthiest life.

Thank you to the IAP2 community for a wonderful and eventful year!  The IAP2A office will be closing from Friday 20 December 2019 – Monday 6 January 2020.

Engaging ethically with Indigenous people is about moving forward within a respectful, egalitarian and participatory process. Understanding History, Territory and Indigenous Identity for Inclusion … a step towards reconciliation is a conversation looking at how to shift social structures of “us” and “them”, looking at history as narrative and reclaiming Indigenous voices in colonial spaces. 

As the bushfire emergencies continue in NSW and Queensland, engagement practitioners are working hard with communities to negotiate the difficult and distressing task of negotiating the journey of recovery.In 2015, IAP2 Australasia along with Anne Leadbeater OAM produced a resource, A Guide to Engaging in Disaster Recovery, to help community leaders and engagement practitioners working to engage and support communities in recovery.

IAP2 Australasian members, Directors and CEO attended the Infrastructure Australia Round Table on Community Engagement held in Sydney at Infrastructure Australia’s offices in September 2019.At the Round Table the participants focused on two key challenges: