Speakers

Dee Brooks is a community strategist, facilitator and author with more than 30 years’ experience working with communities, governments, housing providers and organisations across Australia and internationally. 

As Co-founder of the Jeder Institute, Dee works with developers, local governments and community organisations to help create neighbourhoods that are not only well designed physically, but strong socially. 

Her work focuses on the often overlooked layer of development; social infrastructure. While buildings, parks and roads shape a place, the long-term success of neighbourhoods depends on whether people feel connected, welcomed and able to contribute to the life of their community. 

Through approaches grounded in Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), Dee supports organisations to identify and activate the strengths that already exist within communities; the relationships, skills, local knowledge and leadership that help neighbourhoods thrive. 

Over three decades she has worked across rural towns, urban neighbourhoods and large master-planned communities, supporting housing providers, local governments and development partners to embed community building alongside physical development. 

Dee also works internationally with practitioners, organisations and networks exploring participatory community development and neighbourhood leadership, contributing to global learning and collaboration in the field. 

She is co-author of ABCD & Beyond, a book exploring practical ways organisations can support community participation and neighbourhood leadership in the places people live. 

Dee’s work helps developers, planners and community practitioners understand that successful developments are not only well designed physically; they are places where people know their neighbours, feel welcome and have opportunities to contribute to the life of their community. 

Because when communities are connected and locally active, developments become more than projects — they become places where people belong.