We’re excited to announce that we’ll be working alongside new and current partners across 2026, to map and explore:

• Funding and service flows in SA’s mental health and wellbeing ecosystem

• Strategies for elevating the role of community knowledge and evidence in mental health advocacy, and

• Cultural and systemic shifts needed to support a more community-centric and preventative approach to mental health and wellbeing.

Over the years, we’ve heard from partners that our grants are a valuable opportunity to sit in a space of learning with community, to further grow shared understanding of what makes wellbeing possible, and develop and test approaches that work for different communities. But we also hear that similar opportunities can be rare, and there are real challenges in securing ongoing resources and conditions to implement preventative and community-led approaches.

In our work, we aim to be mindful of the tension that sits between these spaces. It informs our intentions to fund into gaps in ways that support community energy and momentum to move forward with solutions. At the same time, meaningful and long-term change requires significant shifts in the systems that shape how resources flow to communities, and ways that preventative and strengths-based approaches are valued and embedded.

Exploring this tension, we’ve spent time with our partners and peers to better understand both sticking points and opportunities to unlock advocacy pathways in this space – and what we could do to support those efforts.

Flowing from those conversations, we invited proposals last year to undertake research that engages with questions around:

• How are funding flows operating in the mental health and wellbeing system, where are movements towards investment in prevention getting stuck, and what’s driving this?

• What could pave the path for elevating community voices in advocacy to shift systems, and empower communities with the tools, information and strategies to lead wellbeing approaches?

• What could support funders and policymakers with the information, understanding or runways to better respond to and partner with communities in this work?

We are grateful to everyone who contributed their time, knowledge and expertise in sharing their vision for these projects and how the research could support community priorities – both in developing the scope for these projects and submitting proposals for how this work could come to life.

Receiving 25 proposals from individuals and organisations across research, health and community sectors, we feel inspired by the commitment and energy for elevating prevention approaches, led by community knowledge and wisdom.

In taking this work forward, we’re thrilled to announce the group of organisations and individuals we’re partnering with across three connected projects. 

Proven in Practice: Mapping the Mental Health Ecosystem for Strategic Advocacy in South Australia

Be Well Co are engaging in a detailed mapping of South Australia’s mental health ecosystem – its funding flows, service availability and how people experience services. The project draws on Be Well Co’s roots in the SA health research sector (initially as a spin out from the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute), and experience as a social enterprise translating research into mental health and wellbeing solutions.

Contributing to a better understanding of how services are funded, structured and delivered, the research sets the scene for where system strengths exist and where change is most needed.

Rethinking Evidence: Elevating Community Knowledge in Mental Health Advocacy

National Ethnic Disability Alliance (NEDA) and Centre for Social Impact (CSI) are partnering with Community Mental Health Australia (CMHA) and lived experience researcher Lyn Mahboub, to explore how the role of community knowledge and evidence can be elevated in mental health advocacy.

The partnership brings together lived experience, social change and peak advocacy body perspectives, each with strong commitments to community-based wellbeing approaches. The team are exploring how community knowledge and evidence is currently valued in the mental health and related sectors, while raising awareness of limitations of traditional evidence frameworks. Alongside recommendations and practical strategies for using diverse evidence in policy and advocacy, the project aims to create tools and guides to support communities frame and present knowledge in ways that resonate with policymakers and funders.

Transforming Community Wellbeing: A Cultural Shift Towards Prevention

Mentally Fit EP and The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI) are collaborating to examine the cultural and systemic shifts needed to move towards prevention and support community-led approaches to mental health and wellbeing.

As a community-led wellbeing initiative based on the Eyre Peninsula, Mentally Fit EP will be working with their local community to explore strengths and capabilities, map local networks and codesign strategies that empower communities to lead wellbeing in their own way. Alongside TACSI’s deep experience in social innovation, the partnership aims to develop insights and a common understanding around what enables and what gets in the way of community-led prevention work – mapping ecosystem patterns, what works, and opportunities for action.

Throughout these early stages, we have been reminded of just how powerful shared investment, collaboration and understanding is in driving change. While each project takes a different lens, together we hope this work can contribute into building shared pathways and roadmaps for advocacy and long-term systems change.

To support in guiding these projects to be meaningful across different communities and parts of the sector, we are also working alongside our partners and peers through a Steering Committee. We are grateful to our Steering Committee members for coming on this journey with us, and offering insights into community priorities, stakeholder needs and perspectives, and pathways for system responses:

Ellie Hodges, LELAN

Ukash Ahmed, MCCSA

Damian Rigney and Jacinta McKenzie, Healthy Dreaming

Taimi Allan, SA Mental Health Commissioner

Kathryn House, Impact100 SA

Caroline Lock and Nicole Keller, Department of Human Services

We look forward to sharing more as the projects progress throughout 2026 and shape the direction of future thinking and advocacy work in this space. In the meantime, if you would like to know more, or connect in with the research teams, please reach out to us.