What is our commitment
Our Commitment to partnering with people with lived-living experience in Queensland sets out how we work with people who have personal experience of:
- mental health challenges
- alcohol and other drug use
- suicide.
It outlines our values and how we put them into practice when partnering with people with lived-living experience.
Why it matters
Lasting system reform happens when it’s shaped by people with direct experience of services and systems. Their insights, expertise and leadership help create better outcomes.
This includes people with lived-living experience, and those who support them, such as:
- families, kin, unpaid carers, and other unpaid supporters of people with lived-living experience
- people in designated Lived-Living Experience roles
- Lived-Living Experience leaders in communities, non-government organisations, peak bodies and government agencies.
Our commitment makes sure people with lived-living experience are valued partners in shaping system reform.
Read more about how we’re shaping reform through lived-living experience.
Our values
Our lived-living experience partnerships are guided by 6 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
How we partner – our values in action
We put our values into action through the following commitments.
Inclusion and representation
We partner with people with diverse and intersectional identities and lived-living experience 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.
Removing barriers
We address barriers to partnering by:
- identifying and addressing barriers to involvement
- being flexible in our partnership approaches
- collaborating with regional, rural and remote communities.
Sharing power
We share and shift power towards people with lived-living experience 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.
Trauma-informed practice
We take a trauma-informed approach by:
- co-creating safe (enough) spaces
- appropriately framing experiences
- providing access to supports.
Continuous learning
We learn, grow and benefit each other by:
- respecting and valuing difference
- championing new ideas and approaches
- holding reflective spaces.
Shaped by lived-living experience
We developed our commitment in partnership with the Lived Experience Leadership and Advocacy Network (LELAN), with input from:
- people with lived-living experience
- Lived-Living Experience peak bodies
- Queensland Mental Health Commission staff.
Supporting system reform
Our commitment aligns with key priorities and actions under our whole-of-government strategies and plans.