Safe to (re)imagine: Children and young people leading the redesign of adult-shaped systems
A five-year national initiative convened by ANROWS and partner organisations, funded through the Brian M. Davis Charitable Foundation Good Design Grant.
Across Australia, children and young people experiencing domestic, family and sexual violence are navigating some of the most disruptive and difficult periods in their lives, often while seeking safety, stability and care.
While this work begins with their experiences, it recognises that many of the conditions that enable safer, more responsive support have wider relevance for the systems and services that support children and young people experiencing challenges and adversity.
Services are frequently fragmented, shaped by adult priorities and constrained by compliance-driven approaches. This limits opportunities to build trust, sustain relationships and support shared decision-making.
At the same time, we already know something important: when children and young people are genuinely partnered with – not consulted at the margins but recognised as knowledge holders and leaders with decision-making power – responses become more relevant, ethical and effective.
This initiative responds to that need.
Project overview
Safe to (re)imagine is a five-year collaborative initiative funded through the Brian M. Davis Charitable Foundation Good Design Grant Round.
One of four projects supported nationally, the initiative focuses on improving how systems respond to children and young people experiencing harm, including in the context of domestic, family and sexual violence.
This project represents a sustained, long-term commitment to shifting how knowledge, safety and accountability are understood and enacted across child and family welfare, youth, and domestic, family and sexual violence contexts.
Project focus
The project is guided by a central question:
What changes when we rethink not just what we know, but how we know – and who gets to decide?
Over five years, the project will co-create, pilot and scale an integrated, evidence-informed model to support sectors in creating safer, more responsive systems with and for children and young people.
Rather than positioning young people as consultees or recipients of services, the work centres them as designers, leaders and system re-shapers.
Approach and design
A dedicated Design Team of children and young people will lead the work, shaping priorities, questions and responses.
During an initial two-year exploration and design phase, the team will:
- explore how current responses are experienced by children and young people
- identify where responses break down or contribute to harm
- develop ideas for safer, more supportive approaches in practice
- In parallel, the project will bring services, policymakers, researchers, and funders into learning relationships with the Design Team.
This will support shared inquiry between lived and living experience, research, policy and practice, generating new ways of working.
This work will inform the development of:
- a flexible practice framework
- tools and resources for implementation
- demonstrations of collaborative, relational approaches in practice
The project is grounded in principles that prioritise trust, safety, relational practice, cultural responsiveness and ongoing learning.
Project partners
This initiative is convened by Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS), which provides national leadership in evidence production and translation, policy and practice influence and participatory research aligned with the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children. ANROWS is the project convenor, providing strategic oversight to ensure the work remains grounded in ethical, evidence-informed and lived experience/expertise-aligned practice, and aligned to National Plan priorities.
It is delivered in partnership with:
Ensuring lived expertise remains central to the initiative by supporting young people with direct experience of systemic harm to shape agendas, influence decision-making and lead change.
Providing independent design, facilitation and sector convening expertise to support collaboration, governance and the translation of learning into practice.
Leading program design and facilitation, applying systems change and social innovation practices to translate learning into change across policy, funding and systems.
Together, the partnership brings research, lived expertise, design capability and convening power – a collective shaped to hold both the complexity and the care this work demands.
Looking ahead
This project responds to a clear and pressing need for more effective, relational and evidence-informed responses for children and young people experiencing domestic, family and sexual violence.
It is also an act of imagination. It asks what becomes possible when children and young people are trusted as partners in shaping the systems that affect their lives, and when sectors are willing to learn alongside them.
Over the coming years, the project will share insights, learning and resources with partners across sectors – contributing to a growing body of practice that shows how safer, more dignifying responses can be co-created.
We are grateful to the Brian M. Davis Charitable Foundation for supporting this work, and to the children and young people, practitioners and organisations whose leadership and commitment make it possible.
A note on the project title
As this initiative moves towards being youth-led, ‘Safe to (re)imagine’ is its current working title. The young people we collaborate with will ultimately decide whether another name better reflects the heart and direction of the work.
See also
EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS
In their own right: Actions to improve children and young people’s safety from domestic, family and sexual violence
Find out moreREPORT
Attitudes matter: The 2021 National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey (NCAS), Findings for young Australians
Find out more