Pathways into place-based work

This map shows different ways people contribute to place-based work – individually and collectively. It helps you orient yourself in the work, based on where you are right now. You can start anywhere. Follow what feels familiar, or explore other ways of getting involved. Click a pathway or practice point to explore further.

Don’t know where to start? Visit the landing pages for Collective pathways and Individual pathways to get a sense for the different parts of the map.

Pathways Map - Key

This map shows different ways people contribute to place-based work - individually and collectively - and where those forms of work connect.

Colours

Green - Individual pathways

Red - Collective pathways

Pathways

Each colour contains three pathways.

Pathways represent different ways of contributing, not stages or levels.

Practice points

Each circle represents a practice within a pathway.

Select a highlighted practice point to explore reflections, activities and resources.

You can visit practices in any order and return to them at any time.

Overlaps

The blue highlighted areas show where individual and collective pathways connect.

These highlight shared practices that influence both personal contribution and the wider conditions for place-based work.

Overlaps are shared ground, not additional steps.

How to use the map

There is no start or end.

Begin wherever feels most relevant to you.

Explore one pathway or move between several.

The map is designed for exploration rather than a fixed sequence.

Shifting mental models

Systems are shaped by assumptions about what counts as evidence, how risk is understood, what success looks like and how responsibility is shared.

These assumptions influence how resources are allocated, how authority is exercised and how accountability works. They often sit beneath formal policies but still shape how systems respond.

When these assumptions are made visible and reconsidered, new possibilities for shared authority, accountability and locally grounded decision-making can emerge.

Reflect on:

what assumptions shape how expertise, risk, credibility and good practice are understood in your place

whose leadership, lived experience or cultural knowledge is made visible in communications, evaluation or media, and whose is less visible

how language in reports, grants or strategies may reinforce hierarchy or professional dominance

which stories of community-led change are told, and what beliefs about capability, authority or value sit underneath them.

Small step

Choose one decision or way of working in your context and consider the assumptions shaping it.

Share what you notice with someone connected to your community or place. Invite their perspective and notice what becomes clearer when these assumptions are spoken aloud.

Go deeper

Storytelling for Systems Change (Centre for Public Impact, 2024) explains how shared narratives can shift mental models by changing what people notice, value and assume about how change happens.

Toolkit to Authentically Embed Lived Experience Governance (The National Mental Health Consumer and Carer Forum, 2023) helps individuals and teams examine the assumptions that shape decision-making, power and whose knowledge is valued. It provides structured reflection prompts for recognising and shifting the mental models that influence everyday practice.

Return to 'Changing the system together'

Changing the system together