Habitat enhancement is a key tenet of freshwater restoration practice, despite mixed evidence for its effectiveness. Restoration efforts are often driven by community groups and volunteer organisations, typically centring around accessible restoration approaches such as riparian planting. However, actions targeting instream habitat hold significant potential both for ecological community recovery and for community engagement. Here, I present the outcomes of multiple instream habitat addition trials, including: (1) a preliminary trial of small-scale, short-term habitat units as a proof of concept that habitat addition can facilitate establishment of drifting macroinvertebrate colonists; (2) a similar trial in streams with varying physical characteristics to identify methodological constraints; (3) a project co-developed with local iwi (indigenous people) in NZ, resulting in creation of ‘kete piringa’ (baskets of refuge) and demonstrating the value of indigenous knowledge in restoration; (4) a catchment-scale trial in which Aquatic Bug Bags were created and deployed by school children to better understand their local river; and (5) a project led by undergraduate students demonstrating that even the most simple habitat additions can still be effective. Through these case studies, I discuss the value of habitat additions as an engagement tool to connect communities to their local waterways, thereby fostering care and support for these environments. These trials also demonstrate the potential of habitat additions from an ecological restoration perspective, with temporary additions helping to identify where more permanent installations might be effective, or where dispersal constraints may need to be addressed first. As such, the use of habitat additions as an accessible monitoring tool to better understand a compromised system can facilitate more strategic restoration planning, simultaneously sparking enthusiasm and harnessing the power of local communities.