COMPACT recognises that, whatever may be taking place in the complex world we live in, solutions start at home with local communities working together, supporting each other, and building on the strengths of our culturally diverse success story.
COMPACT has turned young lives around by building a sense of identity, self-worth and belonging, and by opening positive pathways and life opportunities.
COMPACT engaged an estimated 20,000 young people in its first two years, inspiring a new generation of community leaders, critical thinkers and champions for community harmony.
COMPACT supports local solutions-based projects that bring young people together to promote positive behaviours and engage critically, creatively and constructively on local and global issues impacting on social cohesion in NSW.
COMPACT partnership projects will build on the strengths of our multicultural society to address one of more of the these objectives.
COMPACT takes a whole-of-society approach to community resilience, youth engagement and conflict resolution. In our program, “resilience” means proactively building and maintaining strong, responsive and cooperative networks that operate across communities and sectors, and that can mobilise to respond to challenges and threats to community harmony, resolve conflict and actively promote social cohesion.
This sense of resilience operates across the full continuum of risk mitigation to support community preparedness, prevention, response and recovery.
COMPACT supports partnerships and collaboration between community, non-government, youth, sports, arts/media, educational organisations and the private sector by providing grant funding for innovative, evidence-based community projects.
Funded projects bring together partners or consortia with the demonstrated experience, expertise and capacity to engage and effect real positive change in young people (female and male young people aged between 12-30), families and communities within a community resilience and conflict resolution frame.
Find out more about COMPACT partnership projects here
COMPACT partnership projects address one or more of the following youth engagement categories:
Volunteers & humanitarians:
includes methods to engage young people in volunteering, civic activities, charity and local and/or international humanitarian work with a clear benefit to local communities.
Creative communicators:
includes creative methods to produce and disseminate positive, credible messages that inspire young people to be champions for community harmony through art, music, writing, public speaking, performance or dance.
Skills & enterprise:
includes innovative methods to harness the entrepreneurial spirit and social conscience of young people through engagement with business and social enterprise.
Critical thinkers & problem solvers:
includes methods to educate, raise awareness, facilitate dialogue, enhance critical thinking, identify, monitor and reduce or resolve community conflict or tension.
Families & intergenerational engagement:
includes methods to engage and support young people, parents and families, address issues of intergenerational conflict, and build resilience at the family level
Sports for social cohesion:
includes methods to engage young people, break down barriers, reinforce positive messages, and create support networks, mentoring opportunities and positive role models.
COMPACT partnership proposals demonstrate evidence for their approach and develop a comprehensive work plan, including plans for stakeholder engagement and project-level evaluation.
Funded partners receive funding based on key milestones, with opportunities for interim evaluation and review. This allows for projects to be adaptive to evolving needs and issues.
COMPACT partnership projects are included as part of the COMPACT program-level evaluation. The COMPACT Program Evaluation Framework has been co-designed with COMPACT Alliance partners to capture the collective outcomes of COMPACT at the program level.
The COMPACT Program Logic (above) captures the parallel streams of activity occurring with the delivery of COMPACT projects for young people, and the joint activities of the COMPACT Alliance.
The NSW Government commissioned an independent evaluation of the Multicultural NSW Community Partnership Action (COMPACT) Program after its first two years. We are pleased to note that the evaluation findings are positive.
The independent evaluation found COMPACT to be a first-of-its-kind initiative that has made significant progress towards its objectives of building social cohesion and community resilience over a relatively short period of time. The evaluation shows that:
Congratulations to all our COMPACT partners for your valuable contribution to community harmony and for making COMPACT such a success. To read the full report click here.
The COMPACT Alliance is a robust network of community partners who all share a commitment to Australia’s peaceful and harmonious way of life. In addition to implementing partnership projects, COMPACT partners all participate as full members of the COMPACT Alliance.
The COMPACT Alliance is a key component of the COMPACT model of community resilience. Since 2016, the COMPACT Alliance has been implementing a program of joint activities designed to strengthen the Alliance as a resilience network and to support the development of a COMPACT Community of Practice.
The COMPACT Alliance meets regularly to progress a range of practical work items on program evaluation, safety and wellbeing, practitioner training, communications, and other issues.
Membership in the COMPACT Alliance provides a unique opportunity to collaborate with other COMPACT partners and connect with key NSW Government agency personnel.
The annual COMPACT Alliance Summit, hosted by the Minister for Multiculturalism, is a forum for showcasing initiatives, learning and adapting from shared experience, and forging new collaborations for future projects.
The quarterly COMPACT Alliance Newsletter is another way of communicating successes and sharing information among COMPACT Alliance partners.
The COMPACT Alliance is keen to share its learning and grow the COMPACT Community with introduction of new COMPACT Alliance partners!
For more information, take a look at the COMPACT Program Overview and FAQs.
