Bringing Community Back Together

Bringing Community Back Together | Season 2 Episode 4 Hugh Mackay AO | Survival of the Kindest: 60 years researching what makes us tick "The problems we're now facing are self-inflicted. We've done this to ourselves, inadvertently, unthinkingly. If you dream of a kinder, more compassionate, more inclusive society, the only way that dream comes true is for those of us who dream it to l...

Bringing Community Back Together | S2E3 | Dr Katya Numbers & Monique Pockran |Co founders Dementia Care Social Club "I haven’t had to be myself for the past two years, I didn’t know that before I came here" .Dementia Care Social Club attendee What if dementia care wasn’t only about services, appointments and managing a diagnosis, butabout how we continue to include people in our fami...

Bringing Community Back Together | Season 2 Episode 2 Dr Hannah Forbes | Goodwill Starts . Systems Sustains "A program is fantastic, but it's only sustainable through the goodwill of the person running the program and the supports around it. When those supports falter, the good work of that program may be lost." What if the problem isn't that we need more evidence about the benefits of intergenera...

Bringing Community Back Together |Season 2 Episode 1 | Dr Arne Rubinstein | Rites of Passage Institute "The question is not whether they'll go through a rite of passage, because they will. The question is, can we create something healthy for them, rather than having them create their own, which can be disastrous.....The transformation of a rite of passage is a change in our beliefs and va...

Bringing Community Back Together | Episode  8  | Jon Owen  | Wayside Chapel "At Wayside Chapel ... when people realise that they're in a place where they're being held, they often start to move forward on their own two feet and with their own energy and momentum, which is a beautiful gift we can give ...because we don't need to be experts... we just need to be humans who can who c...

Bringing Community Back Together |Episode 7 | Ken T "You've given me so much more than youprobably realise." Luca, Year 10 “You might run into good times. You might run into bad ones. But that's life. You take the good with the bad” Ken T What happens when a 15-year-old sits downwith a man who drove trucks across Australia for 37 years, and they just...talk? Ken Taylor has lived...

Bringing Community Back Together | Episode 6 Catia Davim "Human life is worth it until the very last breath. You could be 102 years old and you are still very valuable." In this episode we explore Bhutan's Gross National Happiness & Indigenous wisdom and how they relate to community, plus much more! The secret to making a real impact isn’t always about doing more - it can be abou...

Bringing Community Back Together | Episode 5 Dr Hugh Chilton "Education of the Mind without Education of the Heart is no education at all" Aristotle What does it actually mean to educate a human being? Not just fill them with knowledge or prepare them for a career, but genuinely form them as a person, capable of connection, empathy, and belonging across difference? Dr Hugh Chilton has spent his ca...

Brining Community Back Together | Episode 4 | Luella Prassad Many of us underestimate how simple acts of genuine human connection can transform lives, especially across generations. On Bringing Community Back Together this week, Luella Prasad, a Year 12 student from International Grammar School Sydney, shares * her love of connecting with people * appreciating friendships no matter what age * a sp...

What if connection wasn’t something we added on… but something we designed for? In this conversation, Samantha Heron chats with Churchill Fellow Savannah Fishel, who researched 54 intergenerational and communal living communities across the US and Australia, and authored the report Beyond the White Picket Fence . Drawing on these real-world models that are already emerging, we explore what it mean...

What does it really take to bring community back together? Sometimes it starts with a pair of boots on the ground Mel Knuckey has spent her career doing the quiet, essential work of community connection - from her early days as a shy 18-year-old joining Rotaract on the Central Coast, to running 16 intergenerational programs across Tasmania in under a year as Community Programs Coordinator at COTA...

I had a chat with children's author Brenton Cullen this week about his beautiful, warm and deeply relevant book The Prime Minister Problem "Old folks might feel a little left out. Lonely. So they hide away. They can seem angry or sad — but they might just want a friend." This is a children's book. Yet it captures something that researchers, clinicians and community workers spend entire careers try...

Bringing Community Back Together is a podcast about what happens when we stop trying to solve wellbeing in isolation — and start rebuilding connection across generations, roles, and communities. Hosted by Samantha Heron, founder of Heart & Soul Story, this series explores the growing impact of social fragmentation on our mental health — from rising anxiety in young people to loneliness and los...