The It Depends Podcast with Matt Healey

#22 Convene. Catalyse. Learn: Systems Change for Kids with Michael Hogan

In this episode, Matt speaks with Michael Hogan — Executive Convenor of the Queensland Kids Partnership, an initiative hosted by ARACY that brings together philanthropy, government, community and research to improve the wellbeing of Queensland's children and young people. Michael has more than 35 years' experience in public-purpose work, including roles as Director-General of two Queensland departments.
A deliberate choice sits at the heart of the partnership: rather than create another organisation or service, it set out to use what's already there — convening, catalysng and connecting the people and programs already doing the work, and drawing on ARACY's national networks instead of adding to a crowded ecosystem.
We talk about what makes work genuinely systems-focused, how the partnership organises its work around six portfolios and the idea of "lead, facilitate, affiliate", and why so much of the most important work — relationships, partnerships, weaving networks together — stays invisible and undervalued by funders. Michael also unpacks the role of philanthropy as active partners rather than passive funders, and why shifting outcomes for kids means following the money and changing how investment is done.
His message is clear: we've spent too long prioritising competitive advantage and not enough valuing collaborative advantage — and systems are built by everybody, over generations.
In this episode we cover:
Why the partnership chose not to add to the fragmentation, and what "use what we've got" means in practice
The shift from working in a place to genuinely place-based, systems-focused work
Organising around six portfolios — and the idea of "lead, facilitate, affiliate"
The systems intermediary role: bridging sectors, levels and organisations
Making invisible relationship work visible through social network analysis
Philanthropy as partners and "doers", not just funders
Following the money — investment, commissioning and contracting as levers for change
A shared language through ARACY's Nest, instead of reinventing frameworks
From competitive advantage to collaborative advantage
Resources mentioned:
ARACY (Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth)
The Nest Wellbeing Framework
Country Collaborative — Social Network Analysis Toolkit
Thriving Places, Thriving Kids Network
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#21 Making Space, Valuing Place: A Preview of AES26 in Darwin with Christabelle Darcy and Alison Reedy

In this episode, Matt speaks with Christabelle Darcy and Alison Reedy — co-convenors of the 2026 Australian Evaluation Society Conference being held in Darwin from 14–18 September. Christabelle leads the Program Evaluation Unit at the NT Department of Treasury and Finance, and Alison manages evaluation at the NT Department of Housing, Local Government and Community Development.
Under the theme Making Space, Valuing Place, Christabelle and Alison walk us through the thinking behind this year's program — the four subthemes, the keynote line-up, and why they wanted a conference that welcomes a broader audience into evaluation conversations.
We talk about what it means to do evaluation in place, the role of Indigenous voices and authority in the work, and how the program is designed to encourage people to step outside their usual silos. Christabelle and Alison also share what they're personally hoping to take from the experience — from the richness of working with this year's keynote speakers to the conversations that happen in the margins.
Their message is clear: the evaluation community is wider than the people who already call themselves evaluators, and AES26 is built to bring that wider community into the room.
In this episode we cover:
The thinking behind the theme Making Space, Valuing Place
The four subthemes: Traditions and new ways; Ethics and integrity; Boundaries and bridges; Roots and routes
The 2026 keynote line-up — Robyn Ober, Bagele Chilisa, Lígia Teixeira, Selwyn Button, and Emily Gates
Why context and Country matter in evaluation
What a smaller conference makes possible
What Christabelle and Alison are personally hoping to take away
Resources mentioned:
AES 2026 Conference
Australian Evaluation Society
It Depends Episode 7 with Emily Gates
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 FPC on LinkedIn, or visit our website.

#20 Be Bold and Lift the Bar: Lived Experience, Dignity and Systems Change with Diana Connell

In this special episode, Matt and Tenille speak with Diana Connell - lived experience advocate, ambassador for McAuley Community Services for Women and Global Sisters, and a powerful voice for systems change across family violence, housing and economic security.
Diana shares her story of surviving two decades of family violence, becoming homeless with her two children, and the journey that led her into her advocacy and systems change work. She walks us through what genuine co-design with lived experience actually looks like, the importance of creating space for change, slowing down, and crucially what dignity actually looks like.
We talk about the Safe at Home Trial in Geelong (a continuation of the conversation from Episode 18 with Jocelyn Bignold), the deep interconnection between family violence, housing and economic security, and the work of Global Sisters in supporting women into economic independence through micro-business, business school and the Little Greenhouses initiative.
Diana's message is clear: women deserve more than just to survive. We all need to be bold, lift the bar, and build something incredible together.
In this episode we cover:
The link between family violence, homelessness and economic insecurity
What genuine co-design with lived experience looks like in practice
The Safe at Home Trial and the case for early intervention
Global Sisters and economic independence for women
Fair pay, trauma-informed practice, and meaningful inclusion
Why one seat at the table is never enough
Resources mentioned:
McAuley Community Services for Women
Global Sisters
Safe at Home Trial
WEstjustice Community Legal Centre
Council to Homeless Persons
It Depends Episode 18 with Jocelyn Bignold
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 FPC on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
 

#19 Beyond Sticky Notes: Beauty, Power, Patience and Practice with KA McKercher

What if most communities don't actually need a new co-design project — just someone to notice and strengthen what's already there?
KA McKercher is a co-design and co-production facilitator, trainer and professional supervisor, founder of Beyond Sticky Notes, and author of the book of the same name. In this conversation, they unpack why good co-design is as much about beauty, choice and relationships as it is about methods — and draw on more than 15 years of practice to explain how "purpose" can quietly hide power, why endings matter as much as beginnings, and what it takes to build disability justice into how we do this work.
We also get into the implicit promise that comes with the word "co-design," why seasonality should shape the pace of change, and when not to co-design.
We cover:
The difference between doing co-design and just running a process that borrows the language
"Whose purpose is this?" as the most important upstream question
Choice, access and disability justice as core principles, not add-ons
Endings, promises and what it takes to do them with dignity
When not to co-design, and what to do instead
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 FPC on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
Resources Mentioned
Beyond Sticky Notes — KA's practice, courses and free resources on co-design
Beyond Sticky Notes (the book) — KA's accessible guide to doing co-design for real
Kowa Collaboration — Skye Trudgett's practice, referenced by KA
The Relationship Is the Project — recommended by KA as an essential read
Mia Mingus — on accountability, conflict and transformative justice
It Depends: Episode 14 with Jesse Robinson — on sitting in relationships before the formal work begins
It Depends: Episode 9 with Emma Blomkamp — on being clear about your purpose in co-design
It Depends: Episode 3 with Skye Trudgett — on Indigenous data sovereignty and Indigenous-led evaluation
For the full list of resources, visit the episode page.

#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 with Jessie Robinson

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