Last month, I spent a day in Melbourne at a training called Leading Co-Design in Complex Systems, facilitated by Dr Emma Blomkamp . I work in co-design a lot, but am constantly learning, often from honest reflections in our team on what we could have done better. The session gave me space to slow down, learn and think more carefully about different aspects of co-design. Undertaking this training with Emma and other attendees gave me the opportunity to look through different

“No single agency created these harms, and no single agency can undo them.” Jumbunna Institute Review, July 2025 If you’re passionate about co-design, community engagement, systems reform work, the public sector and policy, then this is the article for you to be across this week. I’m doing a clean-up of my laptop over the holiday break. It was in that state that I couldn’t even make out the picture of my kids behind the endless file thumbnails on my desktop. I am at the pool

I have some rare time waiting for my 10-year-old son today, so I got to read; that reading turned into thinking, and here we are with some quick writing. Like much of my writing, this is often the first cut. I'm too time-poor these days to polish too much, so if grammar and formatting are important for you, here is your cue to switch off. But if you like a bit of a yarn, like you were sitting with me at this cafe, then this might be the yarn for you. Time will tell! The origi

A recent Guardian article (Khalil, 16 September 2025) noted that the youth population in regional NSW has fallen by 12% over the past two years, with even sharper declines in some hotspots. This is in contrast to the narrative of growing youth crime in NSW. BOSCAR reported that in these past two years, there had been an increase of young people in custody by 34%. This was a result of the state government announcing tougher bail laws for youth in 2024. These laws were extended

This week both myself and Kuyan Mitchell were invited onto the 13YARN podcast by the team to yarn about all things men's mental health and wellbeing. We got to link up with Dennis Moran and Alan Heath (Cottle) from 13 YARN. It was an opportunity to reflect in the days leading up about my own experiences with mental health personally, as a trauma survivor and also as a child of someone with a complex diagnosed mental health condition. Our communities feel like they are in an e

In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963, Martin Luther King wrote, “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate… who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom…” More tha

NAIDOC is now past. But I am here reflecting as we wrap a recent community fundraiser where we have been so lucky to achieve our fundraising goal that I thought, what better way to wrap the whirlwind of the past couple of days than to reflect on the key messages you need to remember from this year's theme as well as share some top takeaways from a recent webinar I co-delivered with Dixie Lee Crawford from Nganya. Strength was a part of this year's theme, and for me, my messa

Sam’s NAIDOC reflection this week felt like a call-and-response. These are my thoughts, as I find time in my own way to reflect on and honour the significance of NAIDOC week. I’m choosing to share it, because I know it can be difficult sometimes to envision some of the outcomes here that we’re being invited to imagine. Especially when we're often without evidence or example in our day-to-day lives of the types of positive shifts necessary to bring about the systemic transfor

Every meeting, every gathering, every conference, we hear it more and more: the Acknowledgement of Country. And while that’s a good thing, a powerful thing, we have been noticing something. A lot of people want to get it right; they genuinely want to show respect, but they’re not always sure how. At one point, we went so far as to even survey over 70 professionals through LinkedIn to test our thinking. Can you help us get to 100? Share your thoughts/exp on Acknowledging Count

I should preface this piece by saying that I’ve had so many positive experiences as both a consultant and public servant in procurement. However, I've had some recent experiences and reflections on my time as a public servant. Given I have experience on both sides of the fence, I feel I have a pretty comprehensive understanding of the process and policies surrounding Aboriginal procurement. Based on this experience, I’ve identified some gaps areas and practices that need to b

I found myself in New York this week. Representing Impact Policy at the John Jay College for Criminal Justice . The conference was great and reaffirmed much of what we are championing at Impact, particularly around what lived expertise in policy design looks like. The impact of decolonising research serves as a tool for empowerment for our people and communities. New York is one of the biggest, most notorious cities in the world when it comes to crime and justice, so to be th

Everyone knows the saying, “It takes a village." I never really understood it until I was lucky enough to have my two beautiful babies. I didn’t really grow up seeing that. My mother was a single mother to 5 kids; she struggled, and that was that. We had people come and go, but no consistency ever. My older sister really took on a motherly role and even still to this day plays it, but when she had her own kids, for the first time in our lives she actually let me be there for

It still amazes me that organisations struggle with Aboriginal employment. Last year I attended a conference that Bill Shorten spoke at. When he was discussing the capability and capacity of the Commonwealth Public Sector he admitted the public sector struggles with Aboriginal Employment. I remember being quite confused by his comments, as, in my mind, Aboriginal employment should be one of the easier strategies to implement. It’s always been a frustration of mine that organi

Over the last few years, I’ve watched the word 'co-design' go from something radical and relational to something that’s now at risk of being hollowed out. It’s become a buzzword slapped onto project briefs, policy agendas, and grant applications. Everyone wants to “co-design with community”—but when you scratch beneath the surface, it often amounts to little more than a one-off workshop or rushed round of consultation. As a Wiradjuri man and someone who has been in these spac

Cobham Corrobboree Colleagues at Impact Policy and I were fortunate enough to be invited into the Cobham Youth Justice Custodial Centre last week for a corroboree. The event followed the loss of a young Aboriginal man who had spent much of his adolescence in this centre and others like it. It was an emotionally charged event, with many still in the grieving process, resulting in a wide range of feelings from despair and pain to strong pride in culture. Introductions, story an

This week’s thought leadership is an excerpt from an interview transcript on Indigenous Research Methods with Sam Alderton-Johnson as part of a resource for students considering honours by research. It's been edited to fit more for this style of our weekly thought leadership reflections. Please enjoy! Tell us about yourself, your project and your motivation I guess I grew up in a community, a very strong Aboriginal community, but a community that, you know, an urban Aborigina

I was 11 years old when I committed my first crime. When I was 12 years old, I was chased by police after riding in a stolen car and hid out at my neighbour’s house, I’ll never forget when the police came looking for us - my neighbour, a 13 year old girl at the time, refused multiple times to let the police in when they ever so politely asked if they could come in and have a look around (sweating bullets). I was listening from the top of the stairs and was so scared, I hid ou

Connection. Everyone seeks it. When I was a kid, I only every remember an Acknowledgement of Country being delivered in the place of where a welcome wasn’t able to be. Today, we see the modern adoption of this protocol moving into daily practices of schools, workplaces and events, sometimes multiple times throughout the same event. It is something that has shifted from what I remember as a kid, the Acknowledgement of Country aside from its significance Culturally in terms of

Prelude: The following content involves information that is sensitive and which some readers may find triggering, please continue at your own discretion and seek out support if needed, we have included come links below. Impact Policy would like to highlight that it is National Missing Persons Week, held July 31st - August 5th to raise awareness of the significant issues surrounding Missing Persons each year and those people whose whereabouts continue to remain unknown. Specif

Mainstream education is failing to meet the needs of a growing percentage of young people. I coordinated a flexible learning program and work alongside people that have led flexible learning schools. We are deeply passionate about their significance for our communities; we have seen them work and have seen the impact of them on communities where they have grown. I personally attended a flexible learning program when I was 14, my sister attended flexible learning program in he