About the Fellowship
Developing Indigenous, youth-driven evaluation and learning approaches to enable youth-driven accountability and transformation of out-of-home-care systems
'Finding Joy and Feeling Heartache: Re-imagining Power to Measure what Matters: Youth-Led Evaluation as a Pathway for Healing and Relational Systems Transformation.'
For this fellowship, Monica brings a unique intersection of survivorship, First Nations knowledge, and high-level evaluation expertise. This research seeks to reorient complex systems towards relationality and safety. Guided by values of equity, reciprocity, and cultural integrity, Monica is committed to transforming the way systems interact with people and seeks to redistribute power to those most impacted by out-of-home care systems.
With a focus on Indigenous methodologies—including cultural obligation and relational systems—with the lived experiences of young people, Monica seeks to create safer, healing and equitable systems in developing best practice models for youth-driven accountability. This innovative approach shifts power to those most impacted, enabling young people to define “what good looks like” through intergenerational leadership and adult accountability.
About Monica
Monica McKenzie is an Indigenous leader, mother, and community member from the La Perouse Aboriginal Community, belonging to the Dharawal and Yuin Peoples, with connections to multiple Aboriginal Communities.
As an educator and researcher, Monica is currently conducting evaluation work at the University of Newcastle, where she applies Indigenous methodologies and culturally grounded frameworks. With more than a decade of leadership in Education, she has led strategic curriculum development, truth-telling initiatives, and pedagogical approaches that centre Aboriginal histories and cultures. Her teaching philosophy focuses on culturally responsive and relational pedagogies, aimed at removing structural barriers and redistributing power within institutional settings. Monica has also co-led the culturally responsive evaluation of The Connected Communities Strategy for the NSW Department of Education.
A survivor of the NSW Child Protection System, domestic and family violence, and homelessness, Monica’s personal history deeply informs her work. These lived experiences drive her commitment to transforming how systems interact with individuals and families. They provide her with a critical lens to co-design research and social policy that advocates for youth-driven accountability, ensuring the voices and rights of young people shape the systems impacting their lives.