Megan O'Connell Consulting

My policy and strategic work has driven and informed social policy change to improve outcomes for children and young people. I have crafted evidence based policy submissions across a range of policy areas, from employment to early childhood development.

For example this submission helped inform the Victorian Government’s significant investment in career development across the policy spectrum, whilst this submission was met with an announcement of additional supported traineeships, and other complementary early childhood workforce initiatives.

Beyond policy submissions, I have produced evidence based reports to direct attention to key policy issues across different social policy areas. A key example of this is Those Who Disappear, co-written with Jim Watterston, Dean of Melbourne Graduate School of Education. This report has shone a light on the issue of school refusal, and students who aren’t enrolled in the first place, bringing this to national attention and resulting in a Senate Inquiry.

Beyond the ATAR, co-written with Sandra Milligan and Tom Bentley, has provided a strong evidence base around the need for broader measures of success from education. Work has followed to validate measures that could be incorporated in a learner profile, and a youth-led education movement is continuing to pursue change.