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About together² · Guide
The case for community-led services
The evidence our Community-Led Plan is built on, about what helps people and neighbourhoods do well.
Our 2026 to 2029 plan is not a wish list. It is built on a body of evidence about what actually helps people with disability, older Australians and whole neighbourhoods to do well, from Robert Putnam's work on social capital through to recent reporting from UCL's Policy Lab and the University of Sydney's Matilda Centre. Four findings carry most of the weight, and each one shows up somewhere concrete in what we are building.
Relationships are not an extra
People with disability reach far less of the social capital, the relationships and networks, that helps anyone live well. In Australia, around 19% of working-age people with disability experience social isolation, compared with 9.5% of people without disability, and that gap has not narrowed in two decades.
Closing that gap is the opportunity the whole plan is built on. It is why every support plan we write sits alongside a community plan, and why support workers are asked to help build relationships that are not paid for.
Place beats programs, and third spaces matter
Local, community-driven services consistently do better than fragmented service delivery at producing belonging, independence and quality of life. That is what place-based actually means: not a service delivered in a place, but a place that services grow out of. It is why the plan reawakens the Rozelle Neighbourhood Centre as a hub rather than building something new somewhere else.
The informal connections that ease isolation form in welcoming, neutral places between home and work. A community café is one of the most reliable ways to build one. That is the whole argument for a café that does more than coffee.
Co-designed, not consulted
The plan came out of workshops in October 2025 with participants, families, workers and partners, and was endorsed by our Board. The lived experience in the room shaped it: the three realities the plan is built around, meaningful work, a home of their own and a connected life, are the ones people in those workshops described from their own lives.
That is the last piece of evidence, and the one we can test ourselves. A plan people helped write is one they will hold us to.
If you want to read the plan itself, it is set out in Our Future: the Community-Led Plan 2026 to 2029. If you want to argue with it, even better. Call 02 9556 9500 or get in touch.
Last reviewed 20 September 2026 by Steven Lowrie, Governance and Case Management Lead. Rules and funding can change. If something here does not match your situation, ask us.
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Keep reading
More about About together²
Guide
Our Future: the Community-Led Plan 2026 to 2029
Our plan for the next three years, the three lived realities it is built around, and the road ahead.
Guide
How we work: the Keys to Citizenship
The framework behind every support plan, and the models we draw on alongside it.
Guide
A café that does more than coffee
The social enterprise café planned for Rozelle, the pathways it will carry, and where it is up to.
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