How a social cohesion initiative moved from listening and community engagement to co-design, local experimentation and community-led action.
Belonging matters. But it can also be elusive.
What does it actually mean to belong to a place? How do we know when we feel it? And how does someone who has just arrived – perhaps from another city, another community or another country – begin to feel that this is my place too?
What can the rest of us do to help people feel welcomed, valued and connected?
These aren’t easy questions. But they are necessary ones.
They were at the heart of Connected Communities, a Central Coast Council social cohesion initiative exploring belonging, inclusion, welcome, safety and connection across the Central Coast, with a particular interest in the experiences of migrant, refugee and multicultural communities.
But Bethany Falzon, a passioante community development and creative practitioner at Central Coast Council didn’t want to simply survey the community, extract information and move on.
The intention was to use genuine engagement and co-design as the beginning of something more collaborative – bringing community members, local organisations, community leaders and government together to make sense of what they were hearing and explore what they could do about it together.
Because belonging and social cohesion aren’t things that any one organisation can deliver. They require a whole-of-community approach.
Listening differently
The first step was listening.
The Connected Communities Survey explored people’s experiences of belonging, inclusion, welcome and safety, as well as the places, relationships and activities that helped them feel connected.
Importantly, the questions weren’t developed by Council in isolation.
Bethany developed the survey with guidance from Rabia Khan of Data Action Impact, an external peer review panel including Turkan Aksoy and Soulgen’s Dimitrios Papalexis, and local multicultural sector partners including Mosaic Multicultural Connections, who helped test and refine the questions.
The survey wasn’t only designed to collect data.
It was intentionally used as an engagement and relationship-building tool – opening more meaningful conversations, strengthening relationships with community organisations and building trust through a transparent, culturally responsive and human approach.
It also established a foundation for future benchmarking and evaluation.
Five interconnected priorities emerged
01 — Welcoming, Safe and Respectful Communities
02 — A Strong Sense of Belonging
03 — Gathering and Connecting in the Everyday
04 — Culture is Celebrated
05 — Meaningful Participation for Families and Young People
Rather than treating these as the conclusions of the engagement, they became the starting point for the next stage.
From listening to making sense together
Soulgen was invited to help facilitate the movement from engagement towards collective sense-making, co-design and action.
Across a series of participatory gatherings, community members, community leaders, service providers and government representatives explored the emerging priorities together.
Using storytelling, lived experience, World Café conversations, collaborative inquiry and visual harvesting – supported by Shapeshifters as graphic illustrators – we created opportunities for different experiences, perspectives and ideas to meet.
And importantly, we didn’t only ask:
What’s wrong? What’s missing? What are the problems?
We also asked:
What strengths, stories, relationships, places, people and possibilities already exist here?
What is already happening that we could strengthen or connect?
And what could we do with what we already have – together?
That shift matters.
Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) starts from the understanding that communities are not empty places waiting for institutions or experts to fix them.
Every community already contains people who care, relationships, knowledge, skills, cultural traditions, associations, organisations, stories and places that can become building blocks for change.
Our job is not necessarily to create something new.
Sometimes it is to discover what’s already there, connect what has become disconnected and create the conditions for people to contribute.
Three possibilities emerge
Through the workshops and wider engagement, three practical opportunities began to crystallise.
1. Create more opportunities to connect locally
Small-scale local events and activations that could potentially become regular features of community life – creating everyday opportunities for people to meet and connect close to where they live.
2. Make culture more visible
Increase the visibility and celebration of the many cultures that make up the Central Coast.
Rather than seeing cultural diversity simply as something to accommodate, the conversations recognised culture as a community asset – expressed through food, art, dance, music, storytelling, traditions, knowledge and celebrations that can be shared with others.
3. Connect what’s already there
Help people discover and connect with existing activities, organisations, places and opportunities across the region rather than continually creating new initiatives in isolation.
Together, these ideas pointed towards a different kind of response.
Not another large, centrally designed program.
Something smaller. More local. More experimental.
From an idea to NEIGHBOURHOOD
Those conversations helped inspire NEIGHBOURHOOD – a month-long program of free community events across the Central Coast throughout September 2026.
The concept is built around micro-events: relatively small, place-based opportunities for people to meet, share skills and experiences, celebrate culture and creativity, and build connections with others around them.
Rather than applying the same model everywhere, Central Coast Council identified community partners that had participated in the broader process and worked alongside them to co-design activities responsive to their particular communities, relationships and places.
Partners have been supported with funding, spaces, connections, practical resources, marketing and capacity-building support.
Local changemaker and Creative Producer Whale Design, who had also participated in the workshops, worked as a community connector alongside Council – providing creative and practical support, strengthening networks and connecting partners with additional community resources and relationships.
What emerged is wonderfully diverse
Under the Wishing Tree – Mosaic Multicultural Connections, Mardi
Monsoon Mela – FunHaus, William Street Plaza, Gosford
Spring into Spring – Wyoming Community Centre
The Art of Us – Heartdancers, The Entrance
Come Closer – Gosford CBD Hub, Gosford Regional Library
Neighbourhood Exchange – Central Coast Council and Central Coast Libraries, as part of Welcoming Week
Food. Art. Music. Storytelling. Gardens. Culture. Creativity.
Different expressions of a shared question:
How might we create more opportunities for people to encounter one another and experience belonging where they live?
Sometimes big change starts small
Calling these activities micro-events is important.
They aren’t intended to become another series of large, resource-heavy programs that disappear when funding ends.
The idea was to support relatively small-scale activities grounded in existing community connections, with the potential to be repeated, adapted or grown over time.
The event itself matters.
But perhaps the more interesting question is:
What does the event make possible?
A gathering can create a conversation.
A conversation can create a relationship.
A relationship can create another connection.
Connections become networks.
And networks build social capital.
Some relationships strengthen the bonds within communities. Others build bridges between people, cultures or groups who might not normally meet. Others create links between communities and institutions, resources and opportunities.
Over time, those connections can contribute to something much bigger:
Trust · Participation · Wellbeing · Pride in place · Belonging · Social cohesion
Suddenly, social cohesion becomes less of an abstract policy term.
It becomes something we can experience.
Building on what’s already there
There is another important principle underneath NEIGHBOURHOOD.
The intention wasn’t to parachute identical activities into different suburbs.
An asset- and place-based approach asks different questions:
Who is already here?
Who cares about this place?
What relationships already exist?
What cultures, skills, knowledge and creativity are present?
What spaces and organisations could we activate?
What might become possible if we connect them differently?
This is why the local partners matter so much.
They bring relationships, trust, cultural knowledge, creativity and an understanding of their communities that cannot simply be designed into a program from outside.
The result isn’t one model of “community connection”.
It is a collection of locally shaped experiments in connection and belonging.
A different role for institutions
Community development doesn’t always require government to be the primary designer and deliverer.
Sometimes one of government’s most powerful roles is to listen, convene, connect, resource, build capacity, broker relationships and create the conditions for communities and local organisations to act.
That doesn’t mean institutions disappear.
Nor does it mean communities should be expected to solve complex structural challenges without adequate resources and support.
It means power, knowledge and responsibility can be shared differently.
Council can bring resources, infrastructure, networks and institutional reach.
Community organisations bring relationships, knowledge, trust and local presence.
Residents bring lived experience, culture, ideas, skills, passions and connections.
When those assets meet, different possibilities can emerge.
From consultation to action
For Soulgen, this is what meaningful co-design and asset- and place-based practice can look like.
Not consultation for consultation’s sake.
Not collecting community voices for a report that sits on a shelf.
Not producing colourful ideas on butcher’s paper that disappear after the workshop.
Instead, engagement becomes part of a longer journey:
The Connected Communities survey generated knowledge and relationships.
The workshops created spaces for collective sense-making, connection and possibility.
The partnerships helped translate emerging ideas into locally relevant experiments.
And NEIGHBOURHOOD creates an opportunity to see what happens when those ideas move from the workshop room into real places, relationships and community life.
That movement – from being asked what you think to having opportunities to shape, contribute to and participate in what happens next – is an important one.
The story isn’t finished
NEIGHBOURHOOD is the third and final stage of Central Coast Council’s broader Social Cohesion program, following the Connected Communities survey and engagement and the subsequent participatory workshops.
But hopefully it isn’t the end of the relationships and ideas created through the process.
The real test comes next.
Do people meet someone they wouldn’t otherwise have met?
Do new relationships continue after an event?
Do people discover organisations, places and opportunities they didn’t know existed?
Do culturally diverse communities become more visible in the life of the Central Coast?
Do some of these small experiments happen again – perhaps increasingly supported, shaped or initiated by local people themselves?
And what do we learn that could inform the next iteration?
Because sustainable community development isn’t about designing the perfect intervention and rolling it out.
It is about trying things, learning together, strengthening relationships and creating the conditions for more people to participate and contribute over time.
These are the projects we love being part of.
With thanks
Thank you to Bethany Falzon and the Community Development team at Central Coast Council; Rabia Khan from Data Action Impact; Turkan Aksoy; Mosaic Multicultural Connections; Shapeshifters; Whale Design; the community partners bringing NEIGHBOURHOOD to life; and the many community members, service providers and government representatives who shared their experiences, ideas and hopes throughout the process.
The project is funded by the NSW Government through the NSW Social Cohesion Grants for Local Government.
There is still plenty to learn.
But perhaps belonging is built exactly like this:
One conversation, one relationship, one connection and one small act of community at a time.
Project at a glance
Client
Central Coast Council
Project
Connected Communities / NEIGHBOURHOOD
Funding
NSW Government – NSW Social Cohesion Grants for Local Government
Soulgen’s role
External peer review of the Connected Communities survey; participatory workshop codesign and facilitation; collective sense-making; co-design; asset- and place-based community development
Collaborators
Central Coast Council, Data Action Impact, Turkan Aksoy, Mosaic Multicultural Connections, Shapeshifters, Whale Design and local community partners
Approaches
Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) · Place-Based Community Development · Co-design · World Café · Storytelling · Lived Experience · Visual Harvesting · Participatory Facilitation
Key priorities identified
Welcoming, safe and respectful communities · Belonging · Everyday gathering and connection · Cultural celebration and visibility · Meaningful participation for families and young people
What emerged
NEIGHBOURHOOD – a month-long series of locally co-designed, partner-delivered micro-events across the Central Coast.
Longer-term intention
Strengthen relationships, increase cultural visibility, activate existing places and community assets, grow social capital and create small-scale models for connection that can be repeated, adapted or expanded over time.
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