From 2022-24 staff at Women’s Health Goulburn North East undertook a course in ‘systems change’, an approach to our health promotion, advocacy and primary prevention work that centres the importance of incremental, interconnected collective actions to shift the systems through which we work to better serve the needs of all people living and working in our region.

Through this process we began to develop a Gender Justice Theory of Change – a document that will act as a guide to achieving the type of systemic change that we hope will lead to the optimal health and wellbeing of women across our region – a fundamental driver of our work.

There are several benefits to adopting the theory of change model, as opposed to a more traditional strategy, to guide the type of work we do and the type of change we hope to create at WHGNE. These include:

• To articulate and communicate our work, way of working and aims. Through this process we aim to build a shared understanding of our work, approach and aims across the staff and team.
• Be confident that our collective efforts will lead to lasting population change/realising our vision.
• Assess whether and how well we are achieving and living our purpose.
• This tool will then provide a framework, or road map for future decision making and the ability to check we are moving in the direction of our long term goals – lasting change for women!

Our work centres gender as a social determinant of health. As we work towards gender equality in the social, political and professional lives of women across our region, we acknowledge that women, men and gender diverse people experience varying and intersecting forms of oppression through interactions with the systems and social structures that govern our lives.

Factors like intergenerational trauma and the legacy of colonisation, poverty, geographic and social isolation, language barriers, mental-ill health and disability can compound experiences of exclusion and discrimination, leading to inequitable health and wellbeing outcomes.

WHGNE aspires to contribute collectively with organisations, institutions, government and community to create long-term systemic change that enables equitable access to services, supports and opportunities tailored to the diverse needs of communities.

We approach our work through an intersectional feminist lens and the understanding that individuals are limited in their ability to access choices by the unique set of barriers they may face based on geographic, socioeconomic and historic factors.

The Gender Justice Theory of Change has been developed to approach systemic change through the lens of human rights – gender justice builds on the idea of achieving gender equality to ensure that people of all genders are served by the policies, practices and norms that make up those systems designed to meet community needs.

You can explore WHGNE’s Gender Justice Theory of Change here.