Albany’s Vital Signs: Understanding one another and reaching out key to spreading a sense of belonging

The recent release of the Albany Community Foundation’s Vital Signs report was the culmination of more than a year’s work collating information about the community. As the first of its kind, the report serves as a baseline for future reporting and a catalyst for change. Earlier in the project’s development, four themes most relevant to the Albany community were identified: health and resilience, housing and financial stress, belonging, and education and employment. In a four-week series, the Albany Advertiser will dive deeper into each area by talking to those involved in the focus groups behind the report. Belonging City of Albany community development co-ordinator Tammy Flett was part of the working group responsible for one of the report’s most difficult tasks — how to measure belonging. Despite the availability of a wide-reaching of data, there is very little specific to Albany. “There is a really good index called the Sense of Community Index that is a tool I would have loved to use, but it involves significant manpower,” she said. Next time, Ms Flett would seek to gather data at the grassroots level, collecting responses directly from the Albany community. “Do they actually feel a sense of connection to place? Do they feel a sense of connection to the community?” she said. Ms Flett said she would have loved to know how Albany compares to national statistics on gender and sexuality, which suggest that 11 per cent of Australians have a diverse sexual orientation, sex or gender identity. “We have amazing groups like Albany Pride who are working to make Albany safer for people to identify as their true selves,” she said. “... we could actually be higher than what that figure is, but we don’t know.” Survey results published in the report indicate three-quarters of Albany’s young people believe discrimination exists in the community. Vital Signs project co-ordinator Katie Arbuckle said understanding how discrimination can impact a person’s education and employment is important for the growing city. “If employers want to maintain staff over time, then creating safe work environments through diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are imperative to recruit and maintain staff,” she said. “When our community provides equal access and opportunities for all groups, including under represented ones in the workforce, we all prosper. “Being aware of our unconscious bias is a good step, as well as being open to change.” ACF’s James Leiper said discrimination was “something that flies under the radar” for those not experiencing it. “It shows a mindset shift is still needed – including calling it out when you see it to really cement it as unacceptable behaviour,” he said. He said he was shocked by the level of abuse suffered by the LGBTI community of whom 60 per cent have experienced verbal abuse and 20 per cent physical abuse, according to the WA LGBTI Health Strategy 2019-2024. “While this isn’t Albany-centric, these numbers are still fairly horrific,” Mr Leiper said. The report also looks at the volunteering rate and the number of clubs and associations in Albany to shed light on the community’s sense of connection. Twenty-one per cent of Albany people volunteered in 2021 and there were 320 registered, active and incorporated within the City in 2023. Mr Leiper said the community should be proud that it exceeds State and national volunteering averages, particularly in light of the current cost-of-living and housing shortage crises. “You could argue that there’s never been a more important time to volunteer, or at least to donate to good causes if you have the capacity to do so,” he said. Ms Flett suspects the figures underestimate the reality. The number of volunteers in Albany dropped by 430 from 2016 to 2021, according to the 2021 census, but at the time the census data was collected, Australians would have had limited opportunities to volunteer due to COVID. Additionally, the data on active clubs does not account for those registered through State or national affiliations. Ms Flett said trends researched by Volunteering Australia suggested men had been quicker to return to volunteering roles than women, and that many volunteers were now putting in fewer hours than previously. She also noted that many people do not consider themselves volunteers, even though they might freely give their time to their local community or sports group. The data also suggests Albany is ageing with 30 per cent of the community aged over 60, which Ms Flett said was a natural byproduct of being a regional centre and an ongoing opportunity. “Albany doesn’t have a major industry but I think over time we’re are going to move towards a bigger allied health/aged care industry because there is going to be more aged care homes,” Ms Flett said. Albany might also be an isolated community with 28 per cent of people living alone, according to the 2021 census. “We could have gone down further as to how many seniors live alone because that has a higher risk of social isolation as well,” Ms Flett said. She said getting to know the neighbours “can make a huge difference to how connected people can feel in their community” with simple acts like exchanging contact details and offering to take the bins out a great start. “If you know your neighbours, you are less likely to be a victim of crime, you are more likely to have someone you can go to in a time of need and also, from an emergency point of view, its someone who can help or you can help,” she said. The full report can be found on the ACF website.