Community-Engaged Collaboration, Impact & Learning (CECIL)

CECIL is the home of a dedicated team of UNSW academic and professional staff working on community-led and systems-focused responses to disadvantage and criminalisation, including:

  • the Yuwaya Ngarra-li Partnership with the Dharriwaa Elders Group
  • the Social Determinants of Justice Research Hub
  • Community Engagement @ UNSW.

CECIL enables cross-university, multidisciplinary collaboration on community-engaged research, education and evaluation.
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Our initiatives
UNSW VC with Yuwaya Ngarra-li staff from DEG and UNSW, sitting around a fire
Yuwaya Ngarra-li Partnership

A community-led, long-term partnership between the Dharriwaa Elders Group in Walgett and UNSW. Yuwaya Ngarra-li works together to improve the wellbeing, social, built and physical environment and life pathways of Aboriginal people in Walgett through collaborating on evidence-based initiatives, research and capacity building.

Peta MacGillivray is speaking into a microphone while sitting in parliament
Social Determinants of Justice Research Hub

The SDJ team builds on research that conceptualises the social determinants of justice: the factors associated with a higher likelihood of contact with the criminal justice system. They do this through systems-focused and community-led work that aims to reduce the criminalisation and incarceration of disadvantaged and targeted groups of people.

Eva Lloyd applauded the example set by the Euragai Garden project, saying, “The Euragai Goondi Garden sets a valuable precedent for the use of wicking beds to assist in drought-proofing community gardens in semi-arid environments such as Bourke. The Bourke project team appreciates the opportunity to learn from and build upon this work.
Community Engagement @ UNSW

This initiative progresses community-engaged capability, knowledge and resources across the University, through focusing on:

  • The practice of community-engaged collaboration
  • The scholarship of community-engaged research and education.

Our team
Ruth McCausland is smiling for the camera

Ruth McCausland

Director & Associate Professor

Ruth's research focuses on the social determinants of justice, and enabling systemic and community-led solutions to incarceration and disadvantage. She has worked for 30 years in the fields of criminology, evaluation, human rights, and community development.

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Peta MacGillivray is smiling for the camera

Peta MacGillivray

Indigenous Lead

Peta is a Kalkutungu and South Sea Islander lawyer and researcher. She has worked as a researcher on a range of criminology, legal services and community-development projects in NSW and across Australia.

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Andrea Hadaway headshot

Andrea Hadaway

Program Manager

Andrea has worked as a lawyer and programs lead with system-impacted children over the past 20 years and holds an MBA. She has also worked in the youth and community services sector, leading programs and services supporting children, young people, women, families and communities.

Yssy Burton-Clark

Yssy Burton-Clark

Project Officer

Yssy is an experienced communications and project officer who is also an early career disability and criminology researcher.

Anna Molony is smiling for the camera

Anna Molony

Administrative Assistant

Anna is an early career criminology and criminal justice scholar. She is passionate about beginning work in criminal and social justice.

CECIL x CoPQTI: Ethics for inclusive research – Learning and development workshop

12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Have ethical questions and quandaries in your research left you scratching your head? Are you trying to be inclusive in your research but you’re not sure how to do this well, or explain it to others? Join Community-Engaged Collaboration, Impact & Learning (CECIL) and the Community of Practice for Inclusive Research with Queer and Trans people, and people with innate variations of sex characteristics (Intersex) (CoPQTI) to hear from UNSW staff experienced in inclusive research and have the chance to discuss your research beyond institutional ethics and learn from other participants.