Community Participation in Program Design

Existing programs to improve the attraction and retention of essential workers in regional NSW have primarily focussed on financial incentives to attract essential workers to the regions. These incentives have not completely resolved the deficit in service levels in regional NSW, suggesting other factors also play a role in deterring essential workers from relocating to regional areas. While research had been done for other jurisdictions, there was no research specific to regional NSW.

The Welcome Experience was designed through a staged consultation process with three regional communities in NSW: Walgett, Wagga Wagga and Bega. The service was designed by the Department of Regional NSW (DRNSW) in collaboration with The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI). After initial desktop research stage led by DRNSW, teams from DRNSW and TACSI visited the three regional communities to hear the lived experience of essential workers, their employers and community members to fully understand the factors that deterred essential workers from coming to work and stay in regional NSW.

The background research for The Welcome Experience has delivered a program that is helping to improve the attraction and retention of essential workers in regional NSW. The Human Centred Design research used to build The Welcome Experience fostered close relationships between the program team and the communities in which it has been deployed, increasing its familiarity, impact and uptake with local communities, to help new essential workers feel more at home, faster.