"I feel a sense of belonging here": An investigation into the experiences of Community Centre users in South Australia

A research report prepared by the Australian Alliance for Social Enterprise for the South Australian Department of Human Services. Community centres and neighbourhood houses have a long history in South Australia as being place-based and adopting community development-informed practices to work with and provide avenues for community members to increase community connections, develop skills and move toward active citizenship. This study explored community centre user outcomes resulting from their engagement with South Australian community centres from their own perspectives. Six focus groups were conducted in May and June 2019 at five community centres with 65 community centre users. A powerful thread intersecting across five key themes was that participants’ engagement with their community centres contributed positively to their mental well-being. Overwhelmingly, participants viewed their community centres as vital to their own lives and to their communities and they shared a wide range of reasons for accessing them. They described many ways in which their community centre participation fostered a sense of belonging and connectedness which countered the effects of social isolation, social exclusion and loneliness.