The Commitment to partnering with people with lived-living experience in Queensland formally captures how the Commission partners with people with lived-living experience in our system transformation efforts. This includes people in designated Lived-Living Experience roles, as well as Lived-Living Experience leaders in communities, non-government organisations, peak bodies and government agencies.
Why this is important
The Commission is going through an immense period of growth and has increased responsibility for system reform and transformation.
The perspectives and insights of people with lived-living experience are critical to system reform and we are committed to embedding lived-living experience and expertise at every level and across all aspects of our work.
Developing the Commitment was an important step to ensure people with lived-living experience of mental ill-health, harms from alcohol and other drug use, and suicidality, including their families, kin, unpaid carers, and other unpaid supporters, are central in system reform. This includes in policy, planning, funding, service delivery and governance.
Our Commitment to partnering with people with lived-living experience in Queensland
In partnership with the Lived Experience Leadership and Advocacy Network (LELAN), our Commitment was drafted with input from people with personal lived-living experience and their families, kin, unpaid carers and other unpaid supporters, Lived-Living Experience sector leaders and Commission staff. People were invited to participate through webinars, a survey, and dedicated consultation website, face to face and online workshops as well as a variety of flexible feedback options.
Our Commitment articulates the values we hold and how we will put them into action when partnering with people with lived-living experience.
Our values
- We welcome lived-living experience involvement, expertise and leadership
- We are courageous
- We do what we say
- We are transparent about the way we partner
- We stand alongside people with compassion, listen deeply and respond with care
- We uphold people’s rights
Our values in action
We partner with people with diverse and intersectional identities and lived-living experience
We will do this by:
- Ensuring high levels of representativeness in reform activities
- Embracing everyone for who they are
- Developing partnership approaches with First Nations people and communities
- Being culturally inclusive, safe and responsive
We address barriers to partnering
We will do this by:
- Identifying and addressing barriers to involvement
- Being flexible in our partnership approaches
- Collaborating with regional, rural and remote communities
We share and shift power towards people with lived-living experience
We will do this by:
- Promoting opportunities
- Sharing information and knowledge
- Reducing the impact of power dynamics in partnerships
- Supporting shared decision-making
- Recognising when system reform activities should be lived-living experience-led
We take a trauma-informed approach
We will do this by:
- Co-creating safe (enough) spaces
- Appropriately framing experiences
- Providing access to supports
We learn, grow and benefit each other
We will do this by:
- Respecting and valuing difference
- Championing new ideas and approaches
- Holding reflective spaces
How does this support reform
Our Commitment to partnering with people with lived-living experience in Queensland aligns with key priorities and actions under Shifting minds 2023-2028, Achieving balance 2022-2027, Every life Phase Two 2019-2029, and the Queensland Trauma Strategy 2024-2029.
Next steps
The Commitment is foundational for embedding lived-living experience leadership and governance in the Commission’s broader system reform efforts.
Our next steps will be focused on bringing the Commitment into our everyday ways of working.
