Family breakdown, child abuse and neglect, carer stress, chronic disease and the vast social inequality experienced by Indigenous communities.
For too many Australians, big social challenges are an everyday reality that even the concerted efforts of public policy, community development and social sciences have not managed to shift.
The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI) was founded to develop new solutions to Australia's social challenges, and to spread new approaches to social problem solving.
Our vision is more Australians thriving, not just surviving. We work with organisations across Australia who share that vision.
In 2013 we’re focusing on three areas.
TACSI was founded with seed funding from the South Australian Government. We're based in Adelaide but work across Australia. We're not a government agency, a think tank, an academic institution, or a service delivery organisation. We see ourselves as a laboratory that develops new approaches and solutions, and then spreads them across Australia.
Over three years, TACSI has built an interdisciplinary team that blends expertise in design, social science, community development, business and social work.
Together we've developed solutions with and for families, older people and carers and we've come up with a problem solving approach we are eager to share.
Our first social start-up Family by Family won a NAPCAN award for innovation in child protection and an Australian International Design Award for service design. We're now prototyping our second and third.
Three years of on-the-ground work have helped us establish what's core to what we do.
We aspire to enable people to live great lives. We believe people need more than to 'bounce back' from crisis; they need to move beyond 'getting by' toward thriving.
Our solutions are designed to create and measure change in what people do, say, think and feel. We believe success is about creating the kind of change that's valued by people rather than simply meeting targets set by systems.
The best way we know to create solutions that work for people in context is to develop solutions with those people in that context, and to keep working with them to adapt those solutions over time and for new contexts. Read more about our approach.
Our work on the ground frequently reveals the untapped human resources in our communities. We've seen how these can be harnessed and shaped to create positive outcomes for all involved.
We design our solutions so they can grow. We believe things that work should be spread.
Download a pocket-sized guide to TACSI. Here
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