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The Australian Centre for Social Innovation

Danielle Abbott

Principal – Peer Innovation

Danielle Abbott
she/her

Working on Kaurna Land

As Principal of Peer Innovation at TACSI, Danielle plays a key role in shaping and sharing how peer models can transform systems of support. She leads work that strengthens and scales peer-led approaches – like Family by Family and Virtual Village – so more communities can draw on lived experience and mutual support to drive change.

Working within TACSI’s Consulting team, Danielle partners with organisations and communities to design, test, and embed approaches that are both human and scalable. Her focus is on creating practical pathways for people with lived experience to become co-designers, leaders, and catalysts for innovation.

With over 20 years of experience working alongside families, young people, and communities, Danielle brings deep empathy, grounded wisdom, and an instinct for action. She’s known for her ability to cut through complexity, hold space for growth, and always keep a sense of humour – especially when the work gets challenging.

For Danielle, the most rewarding part of TACSI is helping others stretch what they believe is possible – enabling people and organisations to lead their own change and influence the systems that affect their lives.

When she’s not working, you’ll find Danielle up-cycling furniture, catching up with friends, or winding her way through the Adelaide Hills where she grew up – usually with a good playlist and a big laugh.

  • Bachelor of Visual Art

Danielle's Message Stick

*A message stick is a public form of graphic communication first used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Peoples. The objects were carried by messengers over long distances and were used to support a verbal message.

Danielles Abbot's message stick, document is a compilation of text and images with the headline "4 things to take a closer look at"

Danielle's project highlights

Case study: Peer Support for Young Parents

Case study: Peer Support for Young Parents

In 2023, we partnered with Junction Australia to reflect on the impact of The Young Parent Project and co-design the tools, insights and frameworks needed to scale the program.

Foster to Family

Foster to Family

A framework and toolkit for helping parents and foster carers work together towards returning children home.

The Virtual Village

The Virtual Village

The Virtual Village provides peer-to-peer intensive support for regional families struggling to cope, feeling isolated or experiencing poor mental or physical health. We pair families experiencing stress or trauma with trained family support volunteers with lived experiences of family stress, family violence or isolation.

Co-parenthood

Co-parenthood

Co-designed with families and practitioners, co-parenthood is a shared-parenting model of foster care that helps parents and carers work together towards returning children home, with support services for parents and foster carers.

Weavers

Weavers

Our scaffolded peer-to-peer carers support model Weavers connects people who are caring for a significant other with someone who has lived experience of being a family carer. Weavers is co-designed with carers, which means we listen to the voices of carers and work with them to design a program that actually works for them.

Family by Family

Family by Family

Co-designed with South Australian families for families, Family by Family helps families experiencing setbacks by engaging and training families who have been through tough times to help other families going through tough times themselves.

Meet more of the team who make our work possible.