Learning
Change Facilitator Learning Experience
We’re establishing a team of up to 50 change facilitators – half under 30 years of age – who want to create learning that changes the conditions that surround young Queenslanders so they can thrive – at home or school, while receiving care or on Country.
These Change Facilitators will spend the first year learning and growing together. They’ll then go on to make real change in our communities and across Queensland over the next 3 years.
Together we’ll build change together that lasts for future generations.
Frequently Asked Questions
As this is a new initiative, we understand that you’ll have questions…
What is this all about?
We are building a network of Change Facilitators who are dedicated to ensuring that within one generation, every young Queenslander is thriving.
The Change Facilitator program is part of the Queensland Kids Partnership (QKP), a network of people and organisations working to transform the systems that shape the lives of children and young people in Queensland. This program is designed to complement and connect existing efforts, not replace or duplicate them.
While many programs support individuals or families to navigate difficult systems, this initiative focuses on shifting the systems that surround individuals and families – so that fewer people need to ‘beat the odds’ in the first place.
What is a Change Facilitator?
A Change Facilitator is someone who brings people together to learn, think and act differently – so that the systems and structures around children and young people can shift for the better. Change Facilitators don’t have all the answers. Instead, they create the right learning experiences for others to find better ways of doing things to benefit children and young people.
What will the team of Change Facilitators do?
The Change Facilitators supported and trained to design and facilitate shared learning experiences that help people in our communities, organisations or networks understand systems change. Together we’ll shift the conditions that shape the lives of children and young people in Queensland. We’ll work in ways that disrupt the status quo, as intergenerational teams – where young people are genuine co-leaders, not just participants.
Change Facilitators will:
- support people in communities to build the confidence and skills to tackle what’s hardest to change for children and young people
- explore the relationship between leadership and stewardship – and how that shapes the learning experiences we can design and deliver
- work in intergenerational teams where young people 18-30 years are co-leaders and co-producers
- bring their whole selves – knowledge, culture and lived experience – into what needs to change for all kids to thrive.
What will the learning experience involve?
The learning experience is a journey of growth, connection and shared practice. It includes:
- three gatherings on Country across Queensland over the period from September 2026 to March 2027
- online learning, peer connection and real-world practice
- a formal certification at the end of 20 logged hours of provisional experience
- a fully funded place in the learning experience, with custom financial support available on application to enable equitable participation.
After the formal learning segment, Change Facilitators will be invited to join a pool of casual facilitators who may be called on to design, support or deliver stewardship learning experiences across Queensland over the next 3 years, or they can use their learning in self-initiated opportunities. The invitation is to join a community that is built and supported over 4 years and beyond – because creating change that lasts takes time.
What is a system?
A system is everything that surrounds a child or young person and shapes what their life looks and feels like. Think about the nest a bird builds – every twig, every layer matters. For children, that nest is made up of their family, their school, their community, the services they can access, the culture they belong to, and the broader policies and decisions that affect all of it.
The NEST framework – developed by ARACY – describes 6 things every child needs to thrive:
- to be valued, loved and safe
- to be healthy
- to have a strong sense of identity and culture
- to have material basics – food, housing, transport, and what they need to participate in life
- to be learning
- to be participating – with a voice in decisions that affect them.
When all of those layers are working well together, children thrive. When one part of the nest is missing or broken, everything else is harder. A system is a living web of relationships, resources and conditions. Changing it means tending to all of those layers – not just fixing one thing at a time.
What is stewardship? And what is a steward?
The Change Facilitator Learning Experience is part of QKP’s Engaging Stewards and Voices Portfolio. In this work we are emphasising ‘systems stewardship’ and will be running a suite of learning experiences on what it is and the perspectives, capabilities and practices involved – experiences Change Facilitators will be learning how to design and run within their own contexts!
Stewardship is a way of leading that creates shared responsibility rather than expecting one person to have all the answers.
One way to explain it is to think of a garden. The person caring for the garden prepares the soil, removes what’s blocking growth, and creates the right conditions for the plants (the amount of sunlight, water, and what to feed the plants). Then they trust the process. A steward does the same thing with people and systems. They ask: what does this community need to thrive? rather than what do I think should happen?
Stewardship also carries a sense of time. A steward thinks across generations. They ask: what are we leaving behind for those who come after us?
A steward is someone who takes care of something on behalf of others – not because they own it, but because they feel a responsibility to leave it better than they found it.
Applications have now closed
This learning experience is now fully subscribed. Please contact us at stewards.voices@aracy.org.au with any enquiries or to be kept up to date about related news and announcements.
Working together
This initiative is part of the Queensland Kids Partnership in collaboration with leading systems change experts and practitioners.
The design and delivery of the Change Facilitator Learning Experience is enabled by AIME, Alliance for Leadership Learning, Groupwork Centre and the Front Project.
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More about our work ...
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Report: Queensland Place-Based Rivermap
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