Research Fellow, Ms Donna Stephens, presents thought-provoking Oration
Community First Development Director, and Chair of Research and Ethics Committee, Lauren Ganley (left) along with Sharon Babyack, General Manager Impact and Strategy (right), presented the Inaugural Fellowship Award to Donna Stephens (centre).
Ms Donna Stephens took to the stage on Larrakia Country in Darwin to present her thought-provoking Fellow’s Oration on Participation and Community Development: Reflections on Change Organisations.
Ms Stephens is a Murran/Iwaidja woman from the Coburg Peninsula with an admiring thirty years of experience in education and research in the Northern Territory. She joined Community First Development in 2020 as the Inaugural Research and Evaluation Fellow, where early collaboration focused on developing communities of practice within Community First Development. Her work evolved during the Fellowship, where she continued to make a valuable contribution to the community development and research at Community First Development.
During her Oration, Ms Stephens shared her reflections on the three-year Fellowship and participatory action research project undertaken with eleven First Nation community partners. She reflected on the research and the work underway at Community First Development, despite the Fellowship.
Speaking on her experience of the Fellowship, Ms Stephens shared:
“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, or First Nations, ways of doing is the foundation of this work. The concept of ecological models, of healthy community systems, influenced the theory of change at Community First Development.”
She continued to speak on thinking and doing through ecological models of change; Ms Stephens provided an example of “when staff working on education and language projects came to understand how these projects impact on the social and emotional wellbeing of a community.”
“Underpinned by an ecological model of change, the Community First Development theory of change becomes a creative space which allows the thinking through of outcomes of actions.”
Ms Stephens was quick to thank the Community First Development team, starting the Oration with an acknowledgement of the support and space provided in the uniquely designed Fellowship. She concluded by explaining:
"The Community First Development Fellowship privileged Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge and recognised the academic ways in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are, how they do, and how they know. They privileged a space for me that was not always available in other places."
Donna Stephens and Lauren Ganley share in an engaging discussion about the research and the Fellowship.
Thank you to everyone who joined us in person or online for the Oration. We are excited to share the video recording with you HERE!
If you are interested in becoming our next Fellow, we would love to hear from you. More information on the Fellowship can be found HERE.
Please stay tuned! There is more to come.
Media Release HERE.
Lauren Ganley, Director; Tania Liddle, Senior Community Development Officer; Sharon Babyack, General Manager Impact and Strategy; Donna Stephens, Research and Evaluation Fellow; and Jess Peris, Senior Community Development Officer (from left to right).