What if an important part of the answer to our community mental health challenges doesn’t lie within us… but between us?
Bringing Community Back Together, hosted by Samantha Heron, explores the growing impact of social fragmentation – from rising anxiety in young people to loneliness in older adults – and how connection across generations can be an important part of the answer.
Through real conversations fortnightly with educators, aged care leaders, and community voices, this podcast highlights the role we all play in building meaningful engagement, belonging and stronger communities.
Click any of the images to listen to our latest episodes.
Who’s coming up?
Episode 6: Rethinking the way we measure progress
“Human life is worth it until the very last breath. You could be 102 years old and you are still very valuable.”
In this episode with Catia Davim, Founder of the Australian Social Good Summit we explore Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness & Indigenous wisdom and how they relate to community, plus much more!
The secret to making a real impact isn’t always about doing more – it can be about starting small and building community that lasts. Catia Davim’s journey leading Australia’s for the past decade reveals how one person’s purpose, can ripple outward to create meaningful change. Catia’s personal quest for social impact was sparked by a simple question:
What can I do for the world? She shares how attending theUN-affiliated Social Good Summit in New York ignited her mission to spotlight good projects and inspire collective action in Australia. We break down:
* The power of community-led initiatives and how shared purpose sustains long-term impact, referencing examples like Ronni Kahn AO from Ozharvest and Ren & Ben from ReLove
* that emphasises interconnectedness with land, family, and community – Indigenous principles from the 2025 Indigenous Wisdom Summit from amazing leaders such as Benson Saulo, Professor Yalmay Marika-Yunupiŋu. Professor Anne Poelina and more, that can reframe our approach to social progress
* Lessons from Bhutan’s national happiness index and why collective well-being trumps GDP in creating a thriving society
*How cultivating neighbourhood relationshipsand valuing older generations is vital for social cohesion and mental health
* The importance of incorporating indigenous and local voices into leadership and decision-making, both in Australia and globally Why does it matter? Because communities fractured by individualism and neglecting ancestral wisdom risk deepening crises like loneliness, inequality, and environmental degradation.
Episode 5: Rethinking the way we school
“Education of the Mind without Education of the Heart is no education at all” Aristotle
What does it actually mean to educate a human being? Not just fill them with knowledge or prepare them for a career, but genuinely form them as a person, capable of connection, empathy, and belonging across difference?
Dr Hugh Chilton has spent his career inside that question. From twelve years on the executive leadership team at Scots College Sydney , where he co-designed ScotsX, an experimental model of schooling built around real-world learning and sustained intergenerational relationships to his current role as Head of Teaching and Learning at Wycliffe Christian School in the Blue Mountains, Hugh has been quietly building an answer.
He’s also co-founder of the Sydney Character Initiative at the University of Sydney, working alongside Professor Phil Cummins and Benson Saulo to put character formation back at the centre of what schools are for.
In this conversation, we talk about what happens when you let teenagers spend real time with older people.. fortnightly, for a whole year , and why some of the boys who struggled most in a conventional classroom were the ones who shone brightest in an aged care home. We talk about the difference between adding community connection to a school program and actually designing it in. And we talk about vocation, what it means to choose work that is more than a career.
For educators & those interested, you can read Hugh’s chapter ” Scots X : A School within a School Learning Lab in the 2026 published book Resources for Effective Health and Well-Being Practices in the Middle Grades
Episode 4: Connection is Everything
This episode with Yr 12 student Luella Prasad reminds us that friendship & connection transcend age. Luella’s heartfelt sharing uncovers the profound impact reaching out beyond our comfort zones can yield, highlighting the importance of simply being present and open to others. Luella reminds us that lifelong friendships are born in moments of vulnerability, laughter, and shared stories. We speak about
* her love of connecting with people
* appreciating friendships no matter what age
* a special bond with her own grandfather through a love of piano and ABBA
* a mutual love with her aged care buddy Louise of all things cats & ABBA (even her pet dog Fernando !)
* hopes to be a Speech Pathologist and help improve people’s quality of life
This episode is essential listening for anyone craving authentic relationships in our fast paced, digital world… especially if you believe connection is the heart of community.
Episode 3: ‘Neighbourisms’ – The Pillars of a Resilient Society
Savannah Fishel, Churchill Fellow and Senior service designer facilitating systems change across health, nature and local economies works at the intersection of social connection, intergenerational and communal housing, preventative health, nature and community, service design, systems change, and tackling inequalities
In this conversation, Samantha Heron chats with Churchill Fellow Savannah Fishel, who researched 54 intergenerational and communal living communities across the US and Australia, and authored the report Beyond the White Picket Fence. Drawing on these real-world models that are already emerging, we explore what it means to move beyond individual moments of connection and begin thinking at a systems level.
This episode invites us to consider what becomes possible when we stop treating connection as a “nice to have” and start recognising it as essential to how we live.
This episode is hosted by Heart & Soul Story and supported by Good Flock. We gratefully acknowledge their support and commitment to exploring the cultural shift needed to reimagine how we live, age and belong … together.
Because building a the more connected society we need for a more sustainable world, isn’t just an idea, it’s already beginning to happen.
This episode supported by Good Flock. Join the movement encouraging a cultural shift in ageing: Good Flock.org
Connect with Savannah Fishel: thinkitforward.net
Episode 2 : Boots on the Ground
Mel Knuckey Generations Together – Tech Together, COTA Tasmania
What does it really take to bring community back together? Sometimes it starts with a pair of boots. Mel Knuckey has spent her career doing the quiet, essential work of community connection – from her early days as a shy 18-year-old joining Rotaract on the Central Coast, to running 16 intergenerational programs across Tasmania in under a year as Community Programs Coordinator at COTA Tasmania.
In this conversation, Mel reflects on finding her purpose, the moment something “just clicked” working in community development, and why she believes real change happens on the ground
We talk about:
*The Generations Connect Tech Together program, connecting young people with older residents in residential aged care homes across southern Tasmania through digital literacy and genuine friendship
*Student Sophie, who came in wanting to work in childcare and left with a traineeship in aged care, one of many young people now considering careers they’d never imagined
*The very real aged care workforce crisis, and why intergenerational programs might be part of the solution
*What it means to embed these programs into school curriculum at Years 9 and 10 (and the funding reality that sits behind that vision)
*Th
“Working in community was where I felt really alive and found my purpose in life.” — Mel Knuckey
Episode 1 : The Prime Minister Problem
We had a chat with children’s author Brenton Cullen about his beautiful, warm and deeply relevant book The Prime Minister Problem
“Old folks might feel a little left out. Lonely. So they hide away. They can seem angry or sad — but they might just want a friend.”
This is a children’s book. Yet it captures something that researchers, clinicians and community workers spend entire careers trying to articulate with the same depth. It gently points to something many of us are sensing … that as we fragment and become too ‘busy’ as a community, so too does our everyday experience of connection and belonging
Brenton Cullen writes about a boy, his grandmother, Meals on Wheels rounds, and the quiet devastation of an older person being moved far from the community that knows them.
It is a story written for children, but it is most definitely a story for all of us.
After over 7 years working on ways to increase intergenerational connection, this is the first episode of Bringing Community Back Together, and I could not have asked for a better place to begin.
