Community ownership: the quiet metric

Community ownership is easy to invoke and hard to operationalise. In EpiC the operational definition is concrete: a KVP coordination committee exists in every council, KVP representatives sit on that committee with voice and vote, and the committee meets quarterly with a published agenda and minutes.

By mid-2025 all six EpiC councils had functioning KVP committees with seventy-two KVP representatives seated across the six councils.

Eighteen council-level operational decisions originated from the KVP committees during the year, including the renegotiation of facility opening hours in two councils, the relocation of one drop-in centre, and the introduction of a third gender-friendly entrance at a primary facility.

These decisions are small individually and structural collectively.

The unexpected outcome is upward accountability — KVP representatives now hold ASUTA and partner staff to standards we previously held ourselves to. That is exactly what was supposed to happen.