Valuing the lived experience of people, families and carers is a guiding principle of the Shifting minds: Queensland Mental Health, Alcohol and Other Drugs Strategic Plan 2018-2023, and engaging people with lived experience as equal partners in policy, planning and governance is a strategic priority of the plan’s whole-of-system improvement focus area.
The Commission is piloting and evaluating the Stretch2Engage (S2E) framework in seven sites across public, private and non-government mental health and alcohol and other drugs services in South East Queensland.
S2E provides a framework to help increase and improve meaningful engagement of people with lived experience of mental illness and/or problematic alcohol and other drug (AOD) use, along with their families, friends and supporters, in service design and evaluation across the public and non-government mental health and AOD sectors.
S2E is underpinned by the need for a different approach to engagement, putting the onus on services to change their culture and approaches to see engagement as core business.
The pilot and evaluation will conclude in early 2020, and the Commission is working with stakeholders to consider future options for supporting uptake and implementation of the Stretch2Engage framework.
A 3 December workshop involved pilot sites, the S2E Partnership and steering committee, lived experience representatives, and organisations not previously involved with S2E.
The Commission will continue working with these and other stakeholders to plan the next phase of S2E.
