Facilitating food security systems change in regional Australia through a strengths-based, co-design process

Abstract

Food security is a multifaceted, ‘wicked’ issue that refers to the sufficient physical, social, and economic access to food at all times. Given its complexity, food security action requires a systems-based, collaborative, and adaptive approach. This paper outlines the application of a strengths-based, co-design process to support food security systems change among government and community-led initiatives operating in rural, regional, and remote areas of Western Australia. Baseline, semistructured interviews were conducted with leaders of food initiatives to understand whether and how the initiatives were contributing to food security systems change and identify the ‘windows of opportunity’ where initiatives could be strengthened. Participants co-designed actions to address the ‘windows of opportunity’ and enhance their initiatives. Six months after the co-design process, follow-up interviews were conducted to understand which actions had been implemented. Interview data were analysed thematically using NVivo. Twenty-seven initiative leaders co-designed an action plan, which included 244 actions in total. Based on the 10 six-month follow-up interviews that were conducted, 28 actions were implemented across nine initiatives. Initiative leaders were most likely to implement actions that required fewer resources and could leverage existing activities in comparison to actions that required collaborating or engaging with government representatives. To enhance food security systems change, initiative leaders require support to undertake actions related to government advocacy and collaborating with government organizations.

Contribution to Health Promotion statement.

• Food security is imperative to health and must be supported. This research documents a strengths-based, co-design process to support systems change among government and community-led food security initiatives.

• This work identifies the actions initiative leaders implemented to strengthen programme responses to food security and highlights where they require support to adapt and scale their work.

• Initiative leaders require support to undertake government advocacy and strengthen collaboration. Support could include professional development focused on systems change and partnership development, through training or toolkits. In particular, relationship-building between government and non-government sectors should be prioritised, as should the development of food security policy briefs to raise the issue’s profile and aid advocacy action.

Background

Food security means that everyone has reliable access to safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food, in quantities sufficient to support a healthy and active lifestyle (Committee on World Food Security 2012). Six dimensions underpin food security: food availability, access, utilization, stability, agency, and sustainability (Clapp et al. 2022). Within these dimensions lie multiple determinants, such as the price of food and financial resources to purchase it, which influence an individual’s ability to be food secure (Clapp et al. 2022). As these determinants are numerous, interconnected, and influenced by a range of actors across the food system, food security is characterized as a complex, ‘wicked’ issue (Zivkovic 2017). The food system spans food production, processing, distribution, consumption, and waste, and these activities are embedded within broader social, economic, and environmental contexts. How these factors unfold in people’s lives and within specific geographical locations influences levels of food security (Godrich et al. 2024). Food security remains a major health promotion issue, with challenges arising from the complex interplay of social, economic, and environmental determinants of health (Kent 2025). Although Australia is widely promoted by the government as a food secure country, inequitable access to nutritious food remains a persistent issue, with one in eight Australian households experiencing food security challenges in 2023 (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2023). These issues are particularly pronounced in rural, regional, and remote areas where complex geographical factors, such as the proximity to food outlets and weather events disrupt food supply and distribution systems and create nuanced challenges to food security (Teasdale and Panegyres 2023, Godrich et al. 2025a). The negative impacts of inadequate food security on social, physical, and mental wellbeing are well documented, with evidence linking food security challenges to micronutrient deficiencies, obesity, poor mental health, lower diet quality, increased chronic disease burden, and developmental and behavioural issues among children and adolescents (Kerins et al. 2023). Australia’s primary response to food security challenges relies on emergency food relief services and government-provided social welfare payments which provide short-term, reactive measures that inadequately address the underlying social and structural determinants of the issue (Lindberg et al. 2025). Given the complex interplay between the determinants of food security, effective action requires systems-based, collaborative, and adaptive health promotion approaches that integrate place-based strategies and coordination among diverse interest holders (Zivkovic 2018).

A Systemic Innovation Lab approach incorporates the principles of addressing wicked issues and offers a structured, strengths-based process that enables interest holders to map existing actions, examine their interconnections, and co-design more effective solutions (Zivkovic 2018). Co-design involves engagement and participation from interest holders and/or community members in designing multidimensional, context-specific, relevant and practical solutions to a predefined problem (Vargas et al. 2022). Existing literature describes co-design approaches to inform public health strategies, such as the facilitation of co-design workshops to design nutrition-related public health strategies that improve consumers’ knowledge about healthy food choices (Bogomolova et al. 2021). A complementary methodology to co-design is a strengths-based approach, which shifts the focus to working with communities and leveraging existing resources and local capabilities to build solutions rather than emphasizing deficits (Freeman et al. 2025). Existing evidence supports the need for a co-design approach to food security, due to the various factors shaping food systems. Food security interventions are more effective when co-designed with the communities they affect to ensure they respond to nuanced needs (Ferguson et al. 2023). The Food Community project has implemented an adapted Systemic Innovation Lab methodology (described below) to identify, map, evaluate, and strengthen initiatives supporting food security across rural, regional, and remote Western Australia (Godrich et al. 2025b). The Food Community project is a statewide (except for Metropolitan Perth), government-funded systems change project being delivered in partnership between Edith Cowan University, the Public Health Advocacy Institute, Eventide Systems, and the WA Country Health Service to support food security systems change. This paper explores one stage of the Food Community project (Address stage).

The Systemic Innovation Lab process comprises six stages: Form, Explore, Map, Learn, Address and Share (FEMLAS) (Zivkovic 2018, Godrich et al. 2025b). The first four stages (Form to Learn) have been detailed in previous literature (Godrich et al. 2025b); therefore, a brief summary of each stage will be provided here. The ‘Form’ stage included forming the core team and conducting an initial scoping of community and government-led initiatives supporting food security in rural, regional, and remote Western Australia (Godrich et al. 2025b). During the ‘Explore’ stage, interviews were conducted with food security initiative leaders to gather information about their work to inform the evaluation of their work against 36 systems change characteristics, across nine different Focus Areas: Focus Areas 1–5 relate to helping communities to shift towards a more effective way of supporting food security, and Focus Areas 6–9 relate to the two-way communication between government and community (Godrich et al. 2025b ). At the ‘Map’ stage, interview data were entered into an online Tool for Systemic Change, originally owned by Wicked Lab, and subsequently under the stewardship of Eventide Systems, to produce an ‘impact card’ which visualized how each initiative was contributing towards food security systems change in their region (Godrich et al. 2025b). The ‘Learn’ stage focused on analysing the impact card to identify ‘windows of opportunity’ to guide systems change action (Godrich et al. 2025b). The most prevalent ‘windows of opportunity’ among participating initiatives of the Food Community project were Focus Area 3: Create identity and combine resources, Focus Area 5: Build collective knowledge, Focus Area 6: Align government and community, Focus Area 7: Shape policies with community voice, Focus Area 8: Tap into community know-how, and Focus Area 9: Promote community initiatives (Godrich et al. 2025b). Focus Area 3 relates to moving the system of initiatives towards a new, more effective way of working to address food security (Godrich et al. 2025b ). Focus Area 5 pertains to information dissemination throughout the system of initiatives to support the transition towards the new way of working more quickly (Godrich et al. 2025b). Focus Areas 6 and 7 relate to government exploring food security solutions that already exist within the community, and Focus Areas 8 and 9 are about the government taking those learning and embedding them into government systems (Godrich et al. 2025b). The Focus Areas and systems change characteristic language and concepts used in the Food Community project were adapted from Zivkovic (2015, 2017 , 2018 ). The ‘Address’ stage involved bringing initiative leaders together through regional results-sharing and action-planning workshops, to develop tailored action plans. These consisted of strengths-based, co-designed actions designed to fill identified ‘windows of opportunity’, based on the aforementioned Focus Areas, and support initiatives to shift towards a more desirable way of supporting food security (Godrich et al. 2025b). Finally, the ‘Share’ stage includes the dissemination of project findings (Godrich et al. 2025b). The ‘Address’ stage is the focus of this paper and therefore will be explained in more detail in the methods section. Other findings from the Food Community project including an examination of how initiatives are supporting food security systems change in rural, regional, and remote Western Australia (Godrich et al. 2025b), a qualitative analysis of how initiatives are working in partnership (Godrich et al. 2025c), a social network analysis of partnerships (Godrich et al. 2026), and an exploration of what initiative leaders envision for a food secure region have been published elsewhere (Chiera et al. 2025).

Existing literature highlights the benefits of adopting strengths-based and co-design approaches such as the creation of community-led and accepted solutions to address complex social challenges (Tay et al. 2021). Though, there is a paucity of evidence demonstrating their impact in relation to food security systems change, particularly in rural, regional, and remote areas. As such, gaining insights into the strengths-based, co-design process and its application to food security in rural, regional, and remote settings is important. This paper aims to explore how a strengths-based, co-design process can support food security systems change among government and community-led initiatives operating in rural, regional, and remote Western Australia.

Methods

Ethical approval

This project was approved by the Edith Cowan University Human Research Ethics Committee (2022-03358-GODRICH) and the WA Country Health Service, Human Research Ethics Committee.

Setting and study design

The project was conducted across rural, regional, and remote Western Australia, including inner regional, outer regional, remote and very remote townships in the Wheatbelt, Midwest, Great Southern, Kimberley, Pilbara, and Goldfields regions, based on the WA Health Statistical Local Area Boundaries (Government of Western Australia Department of Health 2020).

Sampling and participant recruitment

Participants of this study were people facilitating initiatives addressing one or more determinants of food security and servicing rural, regional, and remote Western Australia. Potential participants were identified through several methods, including a systematic internet search, the Food Community project Advisory Group, attendees at the project launches, and via snowball sampling. A public project launch event was held in each participating Western Australian region (n = 6). During these launches, the Food Community project team facilitated an activity in which attendees brainstormed initiatives they were aware of that currently supported food security in their region. The data gathered through these methods were compiled into a spreadsheet for each region to support participant recruitment. A three-stage protocol guided participant recruitment. Potential participants were first sent an email from the Food Community project research team inviting them to participate in the study via an interview. The email contained information about the study, a participant information letter and consent form, which recipients were asked to read, sign, and return. Where no response was received, a follow-up telephone call was made to the potential participant one-week after the initial invitation. A final email reminder was sent within 2 weeks of the initial invitation where no response was received for either contact method.

Baseline interviews—tool

Baseline, semistructured interviews were conducted with participants using a 40-question interview guide adapted from the South West Food Community pilot project and the Greening Marion project (Godrich et al. 2019, Greening Adelaide 2021). Baseline interviews sought to understand whether, and how the initiatives possessed the 36 systems change characteristics embedded across the nine Focus Areas associated with the Systemic Innovation Lab approach. Each interview question sought a yes/no response and a brief example from the participant providing evidence of how their initiative possessed the respective systems change characteristic. All interview questions related to food security (the issue) and the region (the place) to capture how initiatives were contributing to systems change in their region. For example, one baseline interview question asked: ‘Do any of your initiatives use words and/or images to help create shared awareness or understanding of a food secure region?’ This question is associated with characteristic 3.1, which examines the use of logos, taglines or branding, resources/ideas to increase public awareness and understanding of a food secure region. Characteristic 3.1 is embedded within Focus Area 3: Create identity and combine resources, which supports the adoption of new ways of working to better address food security (Godrich et al. 2025b).

Baseline interviews—data collection

Data collection for the baseline interviews took place between December 2022 and November 2023. One of two Food Community team members (IC and Saranne Herrington) conducted the semi-structured interviews using the baseline interview guide via Microsoft Teams or telephone. Each interview involved one or two participants and averaged 60 minutes (ranging from 24 to 105 minutes). The interviews were recorded and transcribed using Microsoft Teams’ recording and transcription features, then reviewed and corrected to address any inaccuracies in the automated transcript (Godrich et al. 2025b).

Baseline interviews—data analysis

The Tool for Systemic Change, a software developed by WickedLab and subsequently managed under the stewardship of Eventide Systems (Copyright WickedLab 2023; Copyright Eventide Systems 2026) was used to map the interviewee responses to the baseline interview questions against the 36 systems change characteristics. Data entry into the Tool was completed by one of two Food Community team members (IC and Saranne Herrington), who copied relevant excerpts from the interview transcripts into the comment boxes in the Tool that corresponded with the systems change characteristics. Each excerpt was assigned a status based on the information provided by the participant: ‘actual’ when the initiative’s current practices demonstrated the characteristic; ‘planned’ when a time-bound change was described that would lead to possessing the characteristic; ‘suggestion/idea’ when the participant proposed an idea without a plan; and ‘more information’ when the characteristic was not possessed by the initiative or more detail was required. Based on this information, the Tool produced an ‘impact card’ for each region which provided a visualization of the systems change characteristics possessed by the initiatives and outlined ‘windows of opportunity’ or gaps in effort. The software provided downloadable Microsoft Excel reports outlining quantitative data on the average number and proportion of initiatives possessing systems characteristics across each Focus Area. These data were used to identify which systems change characteristics across each Focus Area represented ‘windows of opportunities’, meaning areas where initiatives across each region had the greatest potential for further strengthening. These data informed the development of the action plan template (outlined below) and determined the focus of each region’s results-sharing and action-planning workshop. An in-depth analysis of the findings from this analysis and a qualitative analysis exploring how participating initiatives possessed the systems change characteristics is explored in a previous paper (Godrich et al. 2025b).

Action plans (Address stage)—tool

The ‘impact card’ was examined to determine the Focus Areas with the most ‘windows of opportunity’ to guide the results-sharing and action-planning workshop. An impact report and action plan template was prepared by the Food Community team for each participating initiative. The impact report summarized how the initiative was contributing to each of the 36 systems change characteristics (where relevant) based on responses to the baseline interview questions. The action plan template visually depicted potential ‘windows of opportunity’ that related to the initiative to enable participants to consider actioning, which would in turn better support food security systems change. An overview of the Focus Areas addressed during each region’s results-sharing and action-planning workshop was included in the action plan template, along with a prompt question to support action planning. The action plan template also included a table with the Focus Area and personalised respective systems change characteristics that were deemed gaps for each initiative, space to write actions to address the window of opportunity, and columns for participants to list the timeline and resources required to incorporate the actions, and a measurement of success. An example of the action plan template is provided in Supplementary File 1.

Action plans (Address stage)—data collection

During the ‘Address’ stage of the Food Community project, participants from the ‘Explore’ project cycle were invited to a one-day results-sharing and action-planning workshop in a town within their region to co-design action plans to strengthen their initiative. The towns were selected based on the most common locality of participating initiatives. Data collection for the action plans took place between April 2023 and November 2023 during the results-sharing and action planning workshops held across each participating region of Western Australia (n = 6). The one-day workshops ran for 6 hours, commencing with a high-level summary of the Food Community project findings. On the day, participants were provided a briefing paper about the Food Community project ‘Address’ stage, a personalized impact report, and a personalized action plan template. Three rounds of action planning occurred during the workshop to support each participant to create a co-designed action plan to strengthen their initiative. Each round included one Focus Area or grouping of similar Focus Areas (e.g. 6 and 7), with participants rotating around tables, each with a facilitator present. The first two rounds included individual table discussions, and the third round included a whole group discussion and action planning.

Each action-planning round was 45 minutes in duration and focused on facilitating the co-design of actions for each participating initiative. Participants introduced themselves and provided an overview of their initiative. The table facilitator provided an overview of the Focus Area/s and the associated systems change characteristics, and offered example strategies or activities. Using their personalized action plan template and the preidentified ‘windows of opportunity’, participants reflected on where changes could be made in their initiative and began filling out their action plans in a staged process that integrated changes to support their initiative to possess the associated systems change characteristics. The table facilitator guided this process by prompting reflection with questions and encouraging participants to share and build on one another’s ideas. At the end of the round, the facilitator noted key examples of actions co-designed at their table and shared those insights with the wider group.

Those who participated virtually via Teams worked with a dedicated facilitator online, across all Focus Areas. In the final component of the day participants explored what new initiatives they believed were needed in their region to support food security and mapped these ideas to the six dimensions of food security. Participants who were unable to attend the live action-planning workshop were provided with three video recordings (a results-sharing recording, an action-planning recording, and a recording about the new initiative ideas explored by participants at the live workshop), an impact report, an action plan template, and a sample completed action plan to provide ideas. These resources supported those participants who were unable to attend the live workshops, to complete their action plan in their own time and email it back to the Food Community team. Handwritten action plans were typed and transferred to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet along with the digital versions.

Six-month follow-up interviews—tool

The 6-month follow-up interview guide was adapted from the evaluation of the South West Food Community pilot project (Rewa et al. 2020). The semistructured interviews contained four questions with subquestions which aimed to measure system transitions by understanding what changes had been made to the initiative, the challenges and enablers associated with implementing the changes, the impact of the Food Community project, and identify participants’ preferences for future follow-ups. The follow-up interview guide was adapted into a Google Document containing the same questions and subquestions, for participants who were unable to attend an interview.

Six-month follow-up interviews—data collection

Six-months after the results-sharing and action-planning workshops, or 6 months after the participant had provided their completed action plan to the Food Community team, eligible participants were invited to take part in a 20-minute follow-up interview. Participant inclusion criteria required that individuals had taken part in the baseline interviews and had completed an action plan for their initiative (either via participating in the workshop or completing the action plan in their own time). Six-month follow-up interview participants were recruited via email initially, and where no response was received within 2 weeks, a follow-up phone call or email reminder was sent. Interviews were conducted via telephone or Microsoft Teams, or participants completed a Google Document in their own time depending on their preference.

Six-month follow-up interviews—data analysis

Data collection took place between October 2023 and October 2024. Interviews ranged in length from 16 to 51 minutes, with an average duration of 33 minutes. Auto-generated Microsoft Teams transcripts were downloaded by the interviewer after each interview and subsequently edited by the Food Community team and trained volunteers to remove auto-transcript errors. The cleaned transcripts and Google Documents were uploaded and managed using QSR NVivo 13 (Lumivero 2020). Thematic analysis was undertaken for the participants’ responses to the 6-month follow-up interview questions. Initially, a deductive approach was adopted by generating initial nodes from the four interview questions, and coding participant responses to the associated node for that question to create a high-level order. Coding was guided by the six-phase data analysis process outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006). The coder (IC) read each 6-month follow-up interview transcript or Google Document to familiarize themselves with the data and recorded points about each transcript in an individual ‘memo’ saved in NVivo. Content within each node was reviewed and further divided into as many child nodes as possible. The child nodes were merged through a targeted coding process to identify key themes. To increase trustworthiness in the coding, the four parent nodes were independently coded by another coder (JD). A consensus meeting was held between the coders (IC and JD). Once no new ideas appeared across the transcripts, saturation was determined. A description of each node was outlined, to summarize the perspectives in the interviews. This manuscript focuses on the following two questions from the 6-month follow-up interview: ‘Can you please provide any information about any changes you have undertaken to each of the initiative characteristics listed on your action plan since the action planning workshop?’ and ‘If any, what kind of impact do you feel the Food Community process has had on your initiative?’ The remainder of the interview, including the challenges and enablers associated with implementing the co-designed actions are the subject of other papers and therefore will not be described here in detail.

Figure 1 outlines the stages of the project and the associated tools relevant to this paper.

Figure 1.

Project stages and associated tools.

Results

Participants and action plans

Twenty-seven initiative leaders of the 101 who had participated in a baseline interview, attended a results-sharing and action-planning workshop held in their region (response rate of 27%). Twenty-seven action plans were co-designed by initiative leaders and the Food Community team which included 244 actions across the Focus Areas. Actions were assigned specific completion timeframes, which varied from 1 to 12 months. Most of the actions were developed for Focus Area 8 (n = 53, 22%). The majority of action plans were developed by initiative leaders categorized as facilitating food literacy and health promotion initiatives (n = 11, 41%). Of the 27 initiative leaders who co-designed an action plan, 10 initiative leaders participated in a 6-month follow-up interview to understand the actions that were implemented (response rate of 37%). Nine initiative leaders implemented actions outlined in their action plans, and 28 actions were implemented across the initiatives. Most of the implemented actions aligned with Focus Area 3 (n = 10, 35%). The results-sharing and action-planning workshop attendance, action plan development, 6-month follow-up interview participation, and the number of actions developed and implemented by Focus Area are outlined in Table 1.

Table 1.

Food Community project results-sharing and action-planning workshop attendance, action plan development, and 6-month follow-up interview participation.

Results-sharing and action-planning workshop attendance, action plan development, and six-month follow-up interview participation	Total
Total across all regions	27
Action plans developed	TOTAL
Total across all regions	27
Action plans developed by food security initiative type	TOTAL
Community gardens and/or food swapping groups	2
Emergency food relief and community programmes	8
Food literacy and health promotion initiatives	11
Policies or strategic plans (e.g. local government Public Health Plans)	2
Businesses, networks, and alliances	4
Farmers’ markets and food events	0
Six-month follow-up interview participation	TOTAL
Total across all regions	10
Six-month follow-up interview participation by food security initiative type	TOTAL
Community gardens and/or food swapping groups	1
Emergency food relief and community programmes	3
Food literacy and health promotion initiatives	4
Policies or strategic plans	1
Businesses, networks, and alliances	1
Farmers’ markets and food events	0
Number of initiatives that implemented actions from their action plans	TOTAL
Total across all regions	9
Number of actions developed by Focus Area*	TOTAL
Total across all Focus Areas	244
Focus Area 3: Create identity and combine resources	34
Focus Area 5: Build collective knowledge	40
Focus Area 6: Align government and community	51
Focus Area 7: Shape policies with community voice	29
Focus Area 8: Tap into community know-how	53
Focus Area 9: Promote community initiatives	37
Number of actions implemented by Focus Area*	TOTAL
Total across all Focus Areas	28
Focus Area 3: Create identity and combine resources	10
Focus Area 5: Build collective knowledge	4
Focus Area 6: Align government and community	4
Focus Area 7: Shape policies with community voice	3
Focus Area 8: Tap into community know-how	2
Focus Area 9: Promote community initiatives	5

^*Focus Area language adapted from Zivkovic (2017).

Examples of actions that were co-designed and implemented by participating initiative leaders across the systems change characteristics, embedded within the Focus Areas that represented ‘windows of opportunities’ are outlined in Table 2. Supplementary File 2 provides a visualization of the actions that were implemented by participating initiatives across the Focus Area characteristics, via the statewide impact card. The implemented actions are indicated by red boxes on the impact card.

Table 2.

Examples of co-designed actions that were implemented by participating initiative leaders across the Focus Areas and their associated characteristics.

Focus Area*	Characteristic*	Example co-designed actions
Focus Area 3: Create identity and combine resources	3.1. Use logos, taglines, or branding, resources/ideas created collectively to increase awareness and understanding of a food secure region.	Logos/images/symbols; increase programme awareness through branding; social media posts.
	3.2. Encourage people to be food security role models/champions.	Incorporate promotion of other local initiatives also supporting food security.
	3.3. Support programmes, projects, or organizations that are focusing on different parts of food security, to share information.	Expand existing lists of local food security action to distribute to the community; connect with other food security initiatives listed on the Food Community website; include food security as a topic for discussion in their networking group meeting.
	3.4. Support people working to address food security to combine their resources and/or skills in new ways.	Include food security as a topic for discussion; leverage existing events to engage with other local food security efforts.
Focus Area 5: Build collective knowledge	5.1. Keep people informed about the ‘big picture’ of food security.	Share food security information with existing client base during nutrition education sessions; develop a position statement on food security.
	5.4. Support collective learning about food security through recording discussions and ideas and making them available to others.	Document key discussion and ideas related to food security presented by the community at workshops; work in collaboration with the TAFE to establish a course.
Focus Area 6: Align government and community	6.1. Support public servants to explain food security policies so they can be understood and used by communities.	Get in contact with the local government to showcase their initiative on their website and in newsletters; food security as a discussion topic in their networking group meeting.
	6.2. Help governments to be transparent and provide information about food security in ways that are helpful to communities.	Ensure that their initiative is listed on online directories; collaborate with their local government to support the development of their local Public Health Plan.
Focus Area 7: Shape policies with community voice	7.1. Support elected representatives (local, state, federal) to explain food security policies so they can be understood and used by communities.	Include food security as a discussion topic in their networking group meeting.
	7.2. Assists elected representatives (local, state, federal) to consider community views and ideas about food security.	Include food security as a discussion topic in their networking group meeting; engage in discussion with local Elected Members about food security and community needs.
Focus Area 8: Tap into community know-how	8.2. Link community-led activities to government strategic planning.	Develop a formal presentation about their initiative for a local government audience.
	8.3. Gather community knowledge and ideas about food security and make it available for others to use in different ways.	Update the information about their initiative on the Food Community website.
Focus Area 9: Promote community initiatives	9.1. Support elected representatives (local, state, federal) to use community knowledge, ideas and innovations about food security.	Communicate local issues and needs to Elected Members such as the rising cost of food and decreasing availability of funding; include food security as a discussion topic in their networking group meeting.
	9.2. Provide elected representatives (local, state, federal) with community information about food security that is relevant to their electorate area or portfolio.	Advocate for the need of necessary and relevant contemporary health data; develop tailored reports and information packages for Elected Representatives that highlight community perspectives; update the information about their initiative on the Food Community website.

^*The Food Community Systems Change Characteristics Translation has been adapted from: Zivkovic (2017), Zivkovic and Humphreys (2022), Government of South Australia (2021)

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Perceived impact of the Food Community project

While the number of action plans developed and actions implemented offered a quantitative indication of the Food Community project outcomes, participants’ accounts of the broader impact of the project provided qualitative insights on the value of the strengths-based co-design process. Together, these data provided insight into both the outputs of the Food Community project and how these were experienced by participating initiative leaders. Participants’ perceptions of the project’s impact are summarized below across three themes: ‘connecting with other organizations’, the ‘Food Community website, resources and staff’, and ‘awareness raising’.

Connecting with other organizations

Participants reported that project involvement fostered relationship-building and enhanced their awareness of various interest holders and initiatives operating in their local area that they were previously unaware of. For example:

‘After the first meeting [with the Food Community team]… I made time after that to actually research. So Regional Development Australia, the WA Country Health Service… Sustainable Development Goals… I'd never actually looked into them… I actually went through and looked at all of those things and what they do and how it fits into what we're doing in the garden, how we slot into it and I think that was the other thing that came from that first meeting was that… the garden is part of a much bigger thing.’ (Community garden or food swapping group)

In-person events facilitated by the Food Community team, such as the results-sharing and action-planning workshops, were particularly valued as opportunities for professional networking. For example:

‘… there was another attendee that came to that workshop, which was [initiative name] that we've actually built a relationship with, to run ongoing programming throughout the year, so that was a really good outcome.’ (Policy or strategic plan)

Food Community website, resources, and staff

Participants noted the value of Food Community project resources, such as their tailored action plan and localized reports, in raising awareness about food security and giving them the language and tools to more confidently speak about this issue. The Food Community website was seen as a central hub for access to these resources. For example:

‘The website has given me easier access to updated initiatives that I can then add to our resources list, and has also given me an online resource to direct participants to for further, updated information’. (Food literacy or health promotion project)

‘We were able to share the link to the Food Community project with the [organisation name] as part of our feedback on emergency food relief in the region, therefore raising their awareness of strategies that exist’. (Business, network and alliance)

Additionally, participants described the benefit of having direct access to the Food Community team and their expertise in the subject area as sounding boards, connectors and an avenue for support in the space. For example:

‘You guys are really useful resource to have on call…’ (Food literacy or health promotion initiative)

Awareness raising

Participants reported that the project increased awareness of the complexities of food security and served as a ‘great spotlight’ on regional issues and solutions. The project also reinforced the importance of the participants’ work and led them to increase their prioritization of food security. For example, the project catalysed team reflections of the importance of applying a food security lens to their existing nutrition work:

‘... I do go back and talk with our team… after that planning workshop we talked about [food security] at the team meeting, and I think it really made us reflect of the importance of incorporating that food security lens into our existing nutrition work…’ (Food literacy or health promotion initiative)

Discussion

The aim of this paper was to examine how a strengths-based, co-design action-planning process could support food security systems change among government and community-led initiatives. The co-designed actions related to a topic, either Focus Areas 3, 5, or 6–9 within the Systemic Innovation Lab approach and were timebound with planned implementation ranging from 1 to 12 months. The actions were undertaken by leaders of food security initiatives, such as food literacy and health promotion project facilitators and community garden coordinators. Despite most of the action plans listing Focus Area 8, ‘Tap into community know-how’ (n = 53, 22%) actions, in the 6 months that followed the results-sharing and action-planning workshops, most of the implemented actions related to Focus Area 3, ‘Create identity and combine resources’ (n = 10, 36%).

Participants who committed to undertake Focus Area 3 actions, noted plans to use logos, taglines, or branding to raise awareness and understanding of food security. The use of logos, symbols or branding can support knowledge-sharing of key points using more simplified language (images) without unnecessary facts (Surie and Hazy 2006 ). Logos and symbols have been used in previous research to raise awareness of sustainability as a food security concept. Younger participants indicated their preference for visual presentation of information to guide their choice of water-conscious products (Sánchez-Bravo et al. 2020). In Germany, the film ‘Taste the Waste’ led to public discussion about food waste, resulting in the establishment of a grass roots food-sharing initiative (Grabs et al. 2016). These actions could be viewed as ‘low-hanging fruit’, or easier to implement actions that are generally inexpensive and have a low staff resource burden, which suggests why they were most likely to be included as proposed actions in participants’ action plans. However, given the complexities of systems change, Focus Area 3 and other Focus Area actions, are likely to have only limited effect on transitioning initiatives towards more effective way of supporting food security if implemented in isolation (Zivkovic 2015).

Another Focus Area 3 strategy which featured heavily in action plans was to encourage people to become food security role models or change champions, as a means to promote food security. The current study's participants planned to promote other local initiatives addressing food security. Using role models has been recognized as a strategy to engage citizens in promoting the uptake of desirable and sustainable behaviours. Role models support the pursuit of goals by modelling aspirational behaviour, inspiring and motivating people in the short term to aspire towards future goal attainment. They promote a goal’s value by bringing attention to valuable behaviours, and the extent to which they expect to achieve it (Morgenroth et al. 2015) and role models provide direction for focused efforts to address an issue (Lichtenstein and Plowman 2009). Previous Western Australia evidence reported broader family role models exerted ‘considerable’ influence over children’s diet, as well as children becoming role models for their families (Godrich et al. 2018). In remote Australia, employment of locally known community coordinators increased the success of an intervention designed to improve the local food environment within four remote communities (Rogers et al. 2018). This action could also be viewed as a lower-cost or easier activity for participants to implement, given initiative leaders would have ready access to prior programme participants who could take on role model actions.

A third Focus Area 3 action proposed by participants was to support initiatives that focus on different (partitioned) parts of food security and connect with other food security initiatives in their region. Evidence asserts that systems change leaders can ensure organizations working on different (partitioned) parts of food security remain connected and informed through periodic information exchange (Surie and Hazy 2006), through localized working groups or interagency committees (Godrich et al. 2020). This further demonstrates this low-resource-intensive strategy could have been selected by many participants given they may already have membership of such committees, collaborating with different sector staff, and found that their involvement in the Food Community project enabled them to directly connect with others working in the food security space. Finally, participants planned to include food security as a topic for discussion in their networking group meeting or leverage existing events to engage with other local food security efforts. These actions would support the combining of resources, which evidence asserts facilitates self-organization as indicated in a previous Australian study where participants provided limited examples of how they facilitated the combining of resources, such as sharing equipment and food literacy lesson plans (Godrich et al. 2020). As discussed above, participants may already have membership of a range of committees that would facilitate the combining of resources. Participants also highlighted the value of the Food Community website and staff in providing direct access to food security information, making it more likely for them to identify with this as an ‘easy’ strategy to implement (Godrich et al. 2020). Overall, participants appeared to understand this Focus Area conceptually in contrast to other Focus Areas.

While this study’s participants were likely to plan and implement systems change actions within Focus Area 3, they were least likely to implement actions in Focus Area 8; ‘Tap into community know-how’. Several planned actions aligned with the systems change characteristic ‘Help staff (government and non-government) to use community knowledge, ideas and innovations about food security’. These included gathering and sharing food security information from clients and community members, providing advocacy documents to elected members, creating a case study highlighting their food security initiative, or reporting on local food security issues to government representatives. However, only 7% (n = 2) of participants progressed these actions beyond their plan. This contrasts previous Western Australian research, which reported 40% of participants undertook similar systems change actions, such as signing Memorandums of Understanding with government (Godrich et al. 2020). Participants in the prior study cited effective partnerships with their organization, facilitated these initiatives (Rewa et al. 2020). Government actors play a vital role in establishing the structural support required to shift systems towards more effective approaches to food security (Zivkovic 2018). Within the broader food system, government food policies encompass a wide range of actions, illustrated by the Western Australian Health Promotion Strategic Framework (Government of Western Australia Department of Health 2022). For example, the priority area ‘Healthy eating and active living to halt the rise in obesity’, focuses on promoting healthier environments, increasing the availability and accessibility of nutritious food, and building the knowledge and skills required to make healthy food choices (Government of Western Australia Department of Health 2022). However, limited federal government leadership, fragmented governance structures, and insufficient funding and resources, may hinder local governments’ capacity to support healthy food systems (Carrad et al. 2022). Few of the present study’s participants planned and delivered presentations about food security to their local government/s staff and elected members in the jurisdiction they deliver their food security initiative in. This finding contrasts with evidence provided by previous research participants, who aligned their programmatic activities with the strategic priorities in government plans (Godrich et al. 2020). In this study, participants included initiatives on the Food Community website’s initiative directory, as one simple strategy to gather community knowledge about food security and make it available for use. Previously, initiative leaders shared food security information within or between government departments or exchanged information about a local community garden with another locality to inspire replication (Godrich et al. 2020). External partnerships with community groups, health organizations, and businesses are highly beneficial for sharing information and have previously been identified as an enabler of local government action on food systems (Carrad et al. 2022). However, this highly relational activity requires time investment to build partnerships across sectors (Kolovou et al. 2024). Additionally, many of the actions within Focus Area 8 may be more effectively achieved where government representatives take the lead. This may include local government representatives initiating engagement with food security initiatives so their work can be integrated into local health planning, as well as directly communicating with initiative leaders to gather community insights and ideas about food security.

This study’s strengths included the range of community-based projects and programmes explored such as community gardens and food swapping groups, among others, in addition to government-led initiatives such as Public Health Plans. Additionally, the use of a strengths-based, co-design process, which can be transferred across areas beyond rural, regional, and remote Western Australia is another strength of this study. Limitations included potential difficulty in participant understanding the complex systems change characteristics and Focus Areas, despite the team’s best efforts to translate the academic theory into plain language. The language translations were cross-checked by the Wicked Lab training facilitator to ensure integrity of the translation. In addition, follow-up interviews were conducted 6 months after the results-sharing and action-planning workshop. Staff turnover prevented participant follow-up or completion of an interview/Google document, given the action plans were completed largely in hard copy and relied upon a staff member to share them within their workplace systems and teams. Some initiatives ceased existence between the stages of the project, further limiting the sample available for follow-up. This may be reflective of the typically short-term funding common within the not-for-profit sector, where a large proportion of these participants were from. Further, the results-sharing and action-planning workshops typically focused on four Focus Areas in which to plan actions. It is possible that this overwhelmed participants and may have been unachievable for their context. Finally, the results presented in this paper reflect the 27 initiatives and the 10 initiative leaders included in this study and cannot be extrapolated to all the initiatives explored in the baseline interviews.

Recommendations, based on the current study and previous evidence (Chiera et al. 2025, Godrich et al. 2025b, Godrich et al. 2025c, Godrich et al. 2026), include:

• Food security initiative leaders within this study were least likely to fulfil actions that required engagement with government representatives, such as advocating for local food security issues and needs. This finding suggests limited capacity for advocacy among initiative leaders. Food security initiative leaders could undertake professional development in advocacy to strengthen their advocacy skills and opportunities to strategically identify and engage with government representatives.

• Based on participants’ perceptions of the Food Community project impact, it is evident initiative leaders value collaborating with others working on food security but may need additional support to better facilitate these partnerships, particularly with government organizations. Partner ‘knitting’ refers to identifying network weavers, being organizations that facilitate interactions between partner organizations and lead projects to enhance a network’s resilience and productivity (Godrich et al. 2026). By fostering collaboration and connecting partners, they could strategically connect government and non-government organizations and build relationships between these sectors to support government-community collaboration. More tailored examples, relevant to specific initiative types, delivered through partnership toolkits, would better support participants.

• The systems change characteristics implemented by initiative leaders in this study suggest that, although participants intended to undertake actions focused on engaging with government representatives, most changes occurred in areas that were less resource-intensive and appeared to be better understood conceptually. Given these constraints, the development of systems change toolkits could effectively and efficiently support food security systems change, by making it easier for participants to understand how to implement specific actions in their communities.

• Food security policy briefs, short infographics or reports, tailored for social and geographical contexts, would help build the profile and advocate for food security as an issue requiring funding and implementation support, particularly in rural, regional and remote areas. This recommendation is supported by participants’ emphasis on having readily available resources they can access and share.

Implications for health promotion

Systems change approaches are essential to effectively address food security challenges and, in turn, improve health and wellbeing. However, this work indicates that health promotion practitioners working to support food security by addressing different parts of the food system often lack the resources and shared language needed to advocate for systems change, particularly when engaging with government representatives. Therefore, health promotion practitioners and advocates can use tailored food security policy briefs when meeting with Ministers and Members of Parliament to advocate for action in their communities. Although practitioners may understand systems approaches in theory, evidence suggests they rarely apply them in practice; instead, they prioritize familiar responses rather than a coordinated portfolio of solutions (Chiera et al. 2025). To address this gap, practitioners and advocates could undertake available professional development, such as through training and toolkits, to deepen their understanding of systems change and equip themselves to use systems change language strategically when engaging with government representatives.

Conclusion

Wicked issues such as food security require systems change approaches to effectively address them. This study has provided evidence that, while participants intended to implement systems change characteristics relating to using community knowledge in government settings, more changes were made to initiatives that created identity and combined resources. These actions may have required fewer resources and could leverage existing activities, whereas participants may not have had advocacy skills or opportunities to undertake engagement with government representatives. To drive systems change to effectively address food security issues in rural, regional, and remote areas, more support is required to enable food security initiative leaders to undertake government advocacy, partner with government and non-government organizations on food security initiatives, implement longer-term initiatives, and design concise action plans to do so. These actions would facilitate systems change across a wider range of Focus Areas to ensure food security for all.

Author contributions

I.C.: Investigation; formal analysis; writing—original draft preparation; writing—review and editing; visualization. J.D.: Investigation; formal analysis; writing—original draft preparation; writing—review and editing; visualization. M.S.: Conceptualization; writing—review and editing; funding acquisition; methodology. A.D.: Conceptualization; writing—review and editing; funding acquisition; methodology. S.L.G.: Conceptualization; funding acquisition; investigation; methodology; formal analysis; project administration; writing—original draft preparation; writing—review and editing; visualization.

Isabelle Chiera (Formal analysis, Investigation, Visualization, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing), Jess Doe (Formal analysis, Investigation, Visualization, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing), Melissa Joan Stoneham (Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Writing—review & editing), Amanda Devine (Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Writing—review & editing), and Stephanie Louise Godrich (Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Visualization, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing)

Supplementary material

Supplementary material is available at Health Promotion International online.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare no competing interests relevant to this manuscript.

Funding

This project is supported by the Healthway (grant number 34502). The funder had no involvement in the study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing of the report; or the decision to submit the report for publication.

Data availability

The data are not available, given participants are from small rural communities and their identities may be reasonably deduced.