Beyond Loneliness: Building Canberra's Third Spaces

The Foundation for Social Health runs the Third Space Network, a Canberra-based project building a network of community spaces aimed at tackling loneliness and improving mental health and wellbeing. It works with existing venues — clubs, cafés, aged care homes, community gardens — that meet specific criteria: they must be participatory, low-cost to access, and inclusive of children and families. A second, earlier-stage strand involves building new "community living rooms" from scratch, with potential sites already identified. The foundation has just secured philanthropic funding.

Students will get hands-on exposure to how community programs are designed, evaluated, and pitched for ongoing funding in the real world — including the gap between well-intentioned community initiatives and ones built to be genuinely scalable and evidence-based. This includes seeing how research findings get translated into policy arguments and funding bids, and how academic and grassroots work can be combined for greater impact.

No specialist background is required going in. The Foundation for Social Health has offered to run basic training in qualitative/thematic coding. Students with an interest or background in population health data, statistics, urban design, psychology, or gender and social policy would find natural entry points, but this isn't a prerequisite.

Depending on scope, deliverables could include:

• Thematic coding of qualitative data gathered from community consultations
• Compiling population-level data (e.g. from AIHW, ABS) to connect on-the-ground outcomes to broader trends
• Running or supporting community consultations at new pilot sites
• A summary report for the Foundation for Social Health outlining student and staff interest, skills, and possible project structure.

Recommended to students who:

• Are interested in urban design, social infrastructure, or third spaces
• Study population health, public health data, statistics, or health economics
• Have an interest in psychology, sociology, or loneliness/mental health research
• Are drawn to policy, gender studies, or social policy reform
• Want practical, applied experience rather than a purely theoretical placement, and are comfortable with some ambiguity given the project's early stage