Abstract

This book celebrates the enormous achievement of the Area Assistance Scheme over its 30-year history in encouraging and resourcing community and social infrastructure, networks, support systems, and innovation. In sharing the history of the AAS in Western Sydney (where it began) and on the Central Coast, this book also provides community workers, activists, students, scholars, and policy makers with ideas, processes, and lessons for working collaboratively and respectfully with local communities. Including eye witness accounts, extensive research, analysis, and discussion, the book connects influential ideas and perspectives shaping social policy and resource allocation with practical examples of how this can and does happen using different funding models. If you work in the community sector, are part of a local group or organisation, or are interested in learning about work with local communities, this book will provide you with valuable examples of how participatory planning can be supported. If you are a policy maker, academic, student, or politician, this book will provide a critical analysis, which links key policy ideas with the practicalities of implementation at a local level. It answers the questions, what is possible when community participation is at the centre of planning and funding decisions, and what are the processes required to encourage this kind of participation?