The purpose
This project is focused on building civic participation and supporting community members to shape decisions that affect their lives. Rather than delivering civic education to Fawkner residents, Public Value Studio is working with them, centring local knowledge and letting them lead.
At the heart of this project is a Community Facilitation Team made up of Fawkner locals. With our support, they will develop and deliver public workshops, bringing their own knowledge of the community, its people, and what matters here. This is not a set of workshops designed elsewhere and dropped into Fawkner, it is shaped by people who live here, understand the local context, and are invested in the outcome. Through this process, the Community Facilitation Team is also developing their own skills and confidence as facilitators, community leaders, and active civic participants – building local capacity that extends well beyond the life of the project.
This approach reflects a core belief: that community members are not passive recipients of information but active agents who have valuable knowledge and the capacity to drive meaningful change. It is an empowered approach, one that positions local people as experts in their own community and gives them the tools, skills, and space to act on that expertise.
Our approach
Working with Fawkner Neighbourhood House, we recruited five Fawkner locals to form the Community Facilitation Team.
Over three co-design sessions, the Community Facilitation Team worked through key aspects of the workshop development. They explored questions such as: What does civic participation actually look like in Fawkner? What outcomes would make these workshops genuinely meaningful to local people? What content would be most useful? The Team were asked to draw on their own experience and knowledge of the community, they were also encouraged to consult with their own networks along the way bringing in perspectives from across the neighbourhood to inform the design.
The result is workshops that reflect real local knowledge. Every decision, including what content to include, how to structure sessions, what language to use, how to make the workshops accessible and relevant, was made by the Community Facilitation Team. The Team had genuine decision-making authority at every stage.
To support them in delivering the workshops, the Team received facilitation training so that they felt confident and well-prepared to deliver the community workshops – building practical skills they carry beyond this project.
Outcomes
The community workshops will be held 1 & 15 June at the Fawkner Neighbourhood House.
