Policies often assume children will benefit from community strengthening and social inclusion initiatives, or assume that children can act as a catalyst for bringing adults together. But what do children themselves say about community? How do children define community? What do they value about community and what would they change if given the option?  To answer these questions it is essential to engage meaningfully with children.  CPC does this through rights-based, participatory research with children.

The foundation for this work was in an ARC Linkage Project: Children, Communities and Social Capital in Australia.  This project explored children’s views and experiences of community and aims to increase understanding of community and community strengthening initiatives from a child-centred perspective. It resulted in the ‘Community Jigsaw’ – an analytic tool for developing strong, supportive, child-inclusive communities.

The full report from that project is available here (PDF file).