The It Depends Podcast with Matt and Tenille

#18 The Gap in the Middle Is Homelessness: From Systems Mapping to Safe at Home with Jocelyn Bignold

Family violence is the leading cause of homelessness in Australia. Everything in the system — community expectations, child protection, housing support payments — pushes women to leave. And yet there's nowhere affordable for them to go. The gap in the middle is homelessness.
In this episode, we speak with Jocelyn Bignold, CEO of McAuley Community Services for Women, about the deep intersection between family violence and homelessness, and what happens when we flip the script. Jocelyn walks us through the Safe at Home trial in Geelong and Barwon, which is supporting whole families to stay safe — with zero critical incidents and no homelessness across 23 households so far.
We also dig into how systems mapping became McAuley's "North Star," why early intervention means different things to different parts of the system, and what it takes to turn curiosity into action when the problem feels too big.
Key topics:
The intersection of family violence and homelessness
How the Safe at Home trial works — and what it's revealing
Systems mapping as a tool for seeing the bigger picture
Redefining early intervention through lived experience
Scaling from a pilot without losing what makes it work
The role of curiosity, boldness, and partnerships in systems change
Links & resources:
Safe at Home
McAuley Community Services for Women
AIHW Specialist Homelessness Services Annual Report
Systems Sandbox Episode: Systems Thinking as Process and Product with Jocelyn Bignold — Apple Podcasts | Spotify
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#17 From Why to How: Engaging Men and Boys in Violence Prevention with Michael Flood

What does it take to engage men and boys in preventing domestic and sexual violence — and what separates the work that actually shifts things from the kind that doesn’t?
Professor Michael Flood is an internationally recognised researcher at Queensland University of Technology and one of Australia’s leading voices on men, masculinities, and violence prevention. With over 30 years of experience spanning research, community education, and pro-feminist advocacy, he has spent his career not just studying this field but actively building it. In this conversation, he traces the shift from arguing why men and boys should be engaged in this work to the harder, more important question of how — and what makes some approaches genuinely effective while others fall short.
Michael explores the distinct challenges of violence prevention compared to other men’s health work, why most men privately reject violence-supportive attitudes but stay silent anyway, how the man box constrains the men inside it as much as those around them, and why the language we reach for — from “toxic masculinity” to “healthy masculinity” — can either open doors or close them. He also reflects on the broader conversation about men in crisis, what’s driving it, and why building communities of support among men may matter more than we realise.
If you like what you hear, sign up for our mailing list! We share resources, publications, and other ways to learn. You can also find Matt and Tenille on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
XY Online — one of the world’s largest resources on men and masculinities, for parents, educators, policymakers, and everyday people
The Man Box — Jesuit Social Services research on the costs of rigid masculine norms for men, boys, and those around them
Our Watch — Australia’s national organisation for the primary prevention of violence against women and children
White Ribbon Australia — campaign mobilising men to take active roles in preventing domestic and sexual violence

#16 A New Currency: Reframing How We Value Systems Change with Heidi Peterson

What does it take to demonstrate value for money in systems change approaches? Where do we start when the work is unpredictable, non-linear, and aimed at shifting mindsets rather than just hitting targets?
Heidi Peterson is Lead Principal Consultant at Clear Horizon and a recent PhD candidate who has spent years wrestling with the "rock and hard place" of complexity versus efficiency. In this conversation, she breaks down why traditional cost-benefit analyses often fail systems change initiatives and introduces a new framework designed to capture value that usually sits "beneath the surface".
Heidi explores the shift from the evaluator as an objective "judge" to a "co-constructor" of value, why the best way to value a system is to get the system in the room, and how to stay pragmatic when resources are tight but the stakes are high.
If you like what you hear sign up for our mailing list! We share resources, publications, and other ways to learn. You can also find Matt and Tenille on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
A Framework to Assess the Value for Money of Systems Change Efforts — Heidi's published paper in Evaluation (Peterson, 2025)
WorkWell Summative Report — the case study discussed throughout this episode
WorkWell Value for Money Assessment Report
OPM Guide to Assessing Value for Money — Julian King's value for investment approach
Evaluative Inquiry for Systemic Change — excerpt from Emily Gates' book
Improving Child Safety: Deliberation, Judgment and Empirical Research — Munro, Hardy & Cartwright
Learn more about related episodes on our website:
Value for Investment with Julian King
Rethinking Systems Evaluation with Emily Gates
 

#15 Aligning Place, Evidence, and Change: Lessons from the UK with John Hitchin

What does it take to align place-based approaches with the right kind of evidence — and why does getting that wrong cause so many problems?
John Hitchin is co-founder of Stories of Change and co-author of the Place and Evidence in the UK report. In this conversation, he unpacks what genuinely makes work place-based versus just happening in a place, and walks us through a new taxonomy of five categories of place-based change — each requiring different mechanisms and different forms of evidence.
John draws on over 20 years of experience to explain why misalignment between what funders want to achieve and how they ask practitioners to prove it is one of the biggest barriers in this space. We also get into backbone organisations versus "connective scaffolding," why competitive funding environments sit uneasily with collaborative place-based work, and whether the current policy moment in the UK is a genuine turning point or just another cycle.
We cover:
The distinction between working in a place and doing place-based work
Five categories of place-based change and the evidence each needs
Mechanisms vs activities — how change actually "gets into" a place
What funders should ask themselves before deciding what to measure
Backbone organisations vs connective scaffolding models like Grapevine
Building shared language for a field of practice (without shared frameworks)
Why relationships sit at the heart of all place-based work
If you like what you hear sign up for our mailing list! We share resources, publications, and other ways to learn. You can also find Matt and Tenille on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
Resources Mentioned
Stories of Change — John's partnership focused on strategy, evidence, and narrative for social impact
Place and Evidence in the UK — the report discussed throughout this episode (Hitchin, Little & Waldie, 2025)
Place and Evidence Substack — ongoing writing and thinking from John and colleagues
Place Matters — commissioned the report
Historical Review of Place-Based Approaches — Lankelly Chase (2017)
The Mycelial Network — a UK network of community asset developers
We're Right Here — a campaign for community power
The Relationships Project — exploring the role of relationships in public services
Grapevine, Coventry & Warwickshire — connective scaffolding in practice

#14 To Be a Good Human: Co-Design, Two-Way Learning, and Redistributing Power

What does it really mean to do co-design well — and when might stepping back be more powerful than stepping in?
Jessie Robinson is a proud Wiradjuri man and founder of Mawang Consulting. In this conversation, he challenges us to think differently about co-design — not as a process or framework, but as a fundamentally relational practice rooted in power redistribution.
Jessie shares how First Nations ways of being and doing have shaped his approach, and why he believes communities often already have the solutions — they just need the resources and space to act on them. We also get into the messier side of this work: having hard conversations with commissioners, sitting in discomfort, and what it actually looks like to practise two-way learning rather than just talk about it.
We cover:
Co-design as power redistribution, not methodology
When to resource what already exists rather than design something new
Indigenous knowledge systems and what practitioners can learn from them
The step before 'discovery' — sitting and sharing space with community
Collaboration vs competition in how work gets commissioned
What two-way learning means in practice
If you like what you hear sign up for our mailing list! We share resources, publications, and other ways to learn. You can also find Matt and Tenille on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
Resources Mentioned
Mawang Consulting — Jessie's First Nations owned consultancy
Beyond Sticky Notes — KA McKercher's book on co-design
KA McKercher — co-design practitioner and author

#13 Governance, Not Geography: Redefining What Place-Based Work Really Means with Luke Craven

In this episode of It Depends, Matt and Tenille speak with Dr Luke Craven, CEO of PLACE Australia (Partnerships for Local Action and Community Empowerment), a first-of-its-kind effort to connect, resource, and strengthen place-based initiatives nationally.
Luke shares PLACE's defining insight from engaging with 53 place-based initiatives across the country: that effective place-based work is fundamentally about governance, not geography. He outlines the three principles -subsidiarity, accountability, and partnership - that PLACE believes underpin meaningful place-based practice, and explains why being "domain neutral" allows them to act as ecosystem engineers, connecting practitioners solving similar challenges across early years, net zero transition, criminal justice, and beyond.
This Episode is a thoughtful conversation about what it takes to move place-based approaches from novel to normal, and why being tight on purpose but loose on the how might be the key to lasting systems change.
 
If you like what you hear sign up for our mailing list! We share resources, publications, and other ways to learn. You can also find Matt and Tenille on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
 
Check out past episodes on Resilience in Place (#12 with Gretel Evans), Complex Adaptive Systems in Emergency Management (#8 with Todd Miller), Value for Money in Evaluation (#11 with Julian King) to explore threads that came up in this episode.
Links to resources mentioned or relevant to the episode:
PLACE Australia – including their Practice Framework
Place Matters UK – PLACE's counterpart organisation in the United Kingdom
The Good Shift – Ingrid Burkett's work on systems approaches and visual storytelling
Fire to Flourish – Paul Ramsay Foundation initiative supporting community-led disaster recovery
Logan Together – place-based initiative in Queensland focused on early years
Regen Melbourne – place-based urban regeneration across metropolitan Melbourne

#12 Stories, Place, and Dishwashers: Rethinking Community Resilience with Gretel Evans

Can a dishwasher be an indicator of community resilience?
In this episode of It Depends, Matt speaks with historian and social researcher Dr Gretel Evans about the powerful intersections between storytelling, place, disaster, and community resilience. Drawing on her work in oral history, migration, and environmental history, Gretel shares how her research into floods and bushfires led her into large-scale, place-based recovery through the Fire to Flourish program at Monash University.
Gretel touches on the upcoming Community Disaster Resilience Capability Framework, outlining six key capabilities that support stronger, more connected communities before, during, and after disaster. The conversation explores why community resilience is collective, not individual, and how unexpected infrastructure - like community dishwashers- can play a vital role.
The conversation also dives deep into the role of storytelling and oral history in understanding resilience. Gretel reflects on the ethical dimensions of interviewing, data ownership, trauma, and the potential for community-owned story archives as a future pathway. This is a rich and thoughtful conversation about how history, memory, and lived experience shape the way communities recover, adapt, and imagine their futures—and why numbers alone can never tell the full story.
 
If you like what you hear sign up for our mailing list! We share resources, publications, and other ways to learn. You can also find Matt and Tenille on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
 
Check out past episodes on Indigenous Data Sovereignty (#3 with Skye Trudgett) and Complex Adaptive Systems in Emergency Management (#8 with Todd Miller) to explore threads that came up in this episode.
 
Links to resources mentioned or relevant to the episode:
Oral History and Folklore collection at the National Library of Australia
Oral History Australia - if you want to learn more about oral history 
Fire to Flourish Knowledge Centre - the Toolkit and other materials are posted here (updated 8 April 2026)
A systematic review on co-design, place-making and social capital that Gretel contributed towards.

#11 Foxes, Hedgehogs and Helpful Robots in the World of Evaluation with Bianca Montrosse-Moorhead

We talk a lot about what evaluation is. Methods, models, frameworks, competencies. All the pieces we use to make sense of complex systems. But what about the people doing the work. How do we think, learn, and navigate the field, especially at a time when artificial intelligence is influencing how knowledge is created, interpreted, and judged.
In this episode, Dr Bianca Montrosse Moorhead helps us look beneath the surface of evaluation practice. We explore the classic fox and hedgehog metaphor and what it reveals about how evaluators operate, why our tendencies matter, and how identity shapes the judgments we make. From training the next generation of evaluators to working with the rapid rise of AI, Bianca brings a grounded and thoughtful perspective on where the field is heading and what it asks of us.
Tenille is on leave this week, so Matt is flying solo. Thankfully Bianca is here to keep him company as the two wander through philosophy, practice, technology and the big questions about value and purpose in evaluation.
 
If you like what you hear sign up for our mailing list! We share resources, publications, and other ways to learn. You can also find Matt and Tenille on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
 
Resources from the episode:
Evaluation Foundations Revisited: Cultivating a Life of the Mindful Practitioner by Thomas A Schwandt
Evaluation Essentials: From A to Z by Marvin C Alkin, Anne T Vo and Christina A Christie
Core Concepts in Evaluation: Classic Writings and Contemporary Commentary edited by Lori Wingate, Ayesha Boyce, Lyssa Wilson Becho and Kelly Robertson
Evaluation Criteria for Artificial Intelligence by Bianca Montrosse Moorhead
And keep an eye out for Using Generative AI in Evaluation Practice edited by Carrie Bruce, Valentine Gandhi and Stephan Bony - it's not yet released but will be coming soon and will be open-access. 
 

#10 From Authority to Authenticity: Young Voices in Suicide Prevention Research with Maria Michail

Suicide prevention is one of the most complex challenges in public health - but what happens when we stop treating it as an individual issue and start seeing it as a system?
In this episode of It Depends, Matt and Tenille speak with Dr Maria Michail, Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham, whose pioneering work bridges psychology, systems science, and participatory research.
Together we unpack what it means to move “from authority to authenticity”, exploring how authentic approaches to working with young people in research, systems modelling, and new ways of thinking can reshape how we understand and respond to complexity.
Featuring insights from research innovative work, this conversation challenges the assumptions of safety, power, and expertise - and invites us to rethink how complex problems are best approached.
 
If you like what you hear sign up for our mailing list! We share resources, publications, and other ways to learn. You can also find us on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
 
Below are some of the papers that Maria references in the episode:
An evaluation of the feasibility, value and impact of using participatory modelling to inform the development of a regional system dynamics model for youth suicide prevention
Youth partnership in suicide prevention research: moving beyond the safety discourse
Unleashing the Potential of Systems Modeling and Simulation in Supporting Policy-Making and Resource Allocation for Suicide Prevention

#9 Co-Design and the Guiding Role of "Purpose" with Emma Blomkamp

We throw the word co-design around a lot. It’s become shorthand for collaboration, participation, even goodwill — a prefix that promises inclusion. But what does that little “co-” really mean? In this episode, we explore the shades of co-design: how far collaboration can go, when it works, when it doesn’t, and how systems thinking and design intersect in practice.
Drawing on years of work at the intersection of social innovation, facilitation, and capability-building, Emma Blomkamp helps us unpack the language, myths, and maturity of co-design — and reminds us that it all comes back to one thing: purpose.
Whether you’re a practitioner, policymaker, or just someone curious about what genuine collaboration looks like in complex systems, this episode offers both reflection and practical guidance on doing co with intent.
 
If you like what you hear sign up for our mailing list! We share resources, publications, and other ways to learn. You can also find us on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
Resources from the episode:
Emma Blomkamp's New Know How and specifically the Co-Design Maturity Model and Quiz
KA McKercher's Beyond Sticky Notes - a great resource!
The Impact Policy Podcast episode with Jessie Robinson titled "Co-design Collaboration and Community Engagement)
Co-Design practitioner Dr Tristan Schultz's website