Place-based approaches to policy are crucial - Centre for Just Places

Originally published at Pro Bono

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As natural disasters continue in the wake of climate change, place-based initiatives are crucial to emergency services delivery.

The night Greater Shepparton Lighthouse Project set up its COVID-19 support Facebook page during an outbreak in Shepparton, it received over 300 requests for support. Community-driven collective Lighthouse was able to fulfil those requests and many more, leveraging its deep relationships with local families, schools and businesses to provide food relief, social connection and wellbeing support, and disseminate information and resources.

This story is not unique. COVID hit marginalised people and communities harder than others. For those communities experiencing complex and interrelated inequities, long-term place-based approaches such as Lighthouse’s have been a crucial source of support and long-term resilience building, with similar initiatives emerging across Victoria, Australia and internationally over recent years.

Place-based approaches are a way for communities, local organisations, service providers and government (and other funders) to work together. They are long-term, community-led approaches to tackling complex social, economic and environmental disadvantage and inequity. Place-based approaches recognise that each community has its unique strengths and challenges, and reject ‘one size fits all’ solutions in favour of tailored and targeted investments and interventions.

So what allows place-based initiatives to act so quickly to genuinely meet community needs in times of crisis, such as COVID-19 or the recent flooding? Recently, Jesuit Social Services’ Centre for Just Places, our hub for place-based action, research and advocacy, was commissioned by the Victorian government to investigate what makes some place-based approaches so effective. Our team, alongside partners RMIT University, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and the University of Queensland, explored existing literature and practice, identifying a handful of features common across those effective place-based initiatives.

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