We believe in wellbeing for all people
Understanding culture
Interplay is recognised as a world leader in creating practical tools that communities can use to improve their wellbeing. These tools are underpinned by rigorous scientific methodology.
The Interplay team delivers tools and services that empower communities as active partners – enabling them to assess and measurably improve their own wellbeing.
Founded in Central Australia by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal thought-leaders, Interplay draws together cutting-edge science and insights from many cultures.
Our unique co-design process enables Interplay to work with you to create innovative frameworks for monitoring and evaluation while ensuring that communities retain control of their own data and their wellbeing destinies.
Stories of change driven by science
Interplay’s tools enable us to work with you to design a wellbeing framework relevant to your priorities and goals. Our assessment tools enable us to work with you to identify the key activities required to drive the outputs and outcomes that will translate into measurable impact.
How The Interplay Project began
The Interplay Project came from a campaign by Aboriginal leaders in central Australian communities to empower desert knowledge.
The funding for this research was secured from the Australian Government to develop a wellbeing framework to quantify Aboriginal knowledge and ways of being.
The Interplay Wellbeing Framework was designed from the ground-up, over 6 years in Aboriginal communities in remote Australia.
The idea was to measure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander values and bring these values into policy.
We spent several years asking people from different remote communities around Australia what they cared about and what they wanted out of life.
Even with much cultural diversity, all groups voiced the same priorities – culture, empowerment and community.
We worked with communities to translate their stories into numbers, to show how these values were important to peoples’ wellbeing. We employed and trained 42 Aboriginal community researchers who co-designed and administered surveys to over 900 Aboriginal adults in their communities.
We published this research in over 20 academic publications and shared the knowledge across communities through data visualisations of Interplay Maps.
We've also pitched, shared and socialised findings that are fit-for-purpose for other partners through a number of conference presentations and targeted policy debriefings.
We now use the same approach to evaluate program impacts based on community values and holistic concepts of wellbeing.
The Interplay Project began to empower communities in the design of programs that directly affect them.
It is this belief that we still work towards today.
Culture, empowerment and community.
We translate meaningful stories into meaningful numbers.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ values and knowledge are held in stories, and governments and other partners value evidence in numbers to measure impact.
By bringing together stories and numbers in one shared space, we are able to create a bridge between cultures.
Our aim is to use this data to understand wellbeing needs across different cultures. This is our Wellbeing Framework.
Acknowledgement
We acknowledge the support and involvement of all of the people and communities who participated in the development phase of the Interplay Project:
Centre for Remote Health (Flinders University and Charles Darwin University), Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PMC), Northern Star Resources, Yalu Marŋgithinyaraw Aboriginal Corporation, Marthakal Homelands Resource Centre, Central Desert Native Title Services, Poche Centre of Indigenous Health, Miwatj Health Aboriginal Corporation, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Muntjiltjarra Wurrgumu Group (MWG), Kalano Community Association, Wurli-Wurlinjang Health Service, StrongBala Men's Health Program, Flinders NT-Katherine, Katherine Stolen Generations Group, Banatjarl Strongbala Wumin Grup, Martu Rangers (Wiluna), Ngangganawili Aboriginal Health Service Community (NAHS).