This research summary looks at the extent to which online peer support mental health forums help to build resilience for the rural people with lived experience of mental ill-health who use them.

Between June and November 2021, the Centre for Social Impact (CSI), Swinburne University of Technology, undertook this research project to assist the Department of Social Services (DSS) to build an evidence base for the Information, Linkages and Capacity Building (ILC) Program and inform the future investment strategy.

Social connection is a critical outcome of community-based planning and activity given its ability to positively affect health and wellbeing at the individual and community level. This report informs a deeper understanding of key foundations, assets and optimal conditions for social connection within communities from a strengths-based perspective.

This article draws on risk literature, encounter literature, and examples from the authors’ previously published studies on encounter and work integrated social enterprises involving people with and without intellectual disability.

This report aims to explore how social enterprises realise wellbeing. It is aimed at practitioners, and provides useful tools for understanding wellbeing in social enterprise contexts. Results are derived from four case studies of social enterprises in two regional cities in Australia.