Authors: Marie Piu, Craig Wallace, Sheree Lowe, Caroline Lambert, Virinda Eden, Katie Jones, Simon Katterl, Jordan Pheasant-Kelly, Kathy Wilson, Amaya Alvarez, Sarah Irving, Kelly Pagram, Karen Rule
Year: 2022
Event: 2022 TheMHS Conference
Subject: reform, government, collaboration, carers
Type of resource: Conference Presentations and Papers
Abstract: LEAD PRESENTATION: Working in Partnership: Reflections from VACCHO, VMIAC and Tandem
Marie Piu, Craig Wallace, Sheree Lowe
VACCHO, VMIAC and Tandem are peak bodies for health, wellbeing and mental health in Victoria.
Collectively we represent the Victorian Aboriginal community-controlled health sector. Consumers and family, carers and supporters of people living with mental health challenges and distress.
Twelve months into the Victorian Mental Health reform, we have come together to reflect on the valuable gains made thus far – but to also look ahead at the meaningful actions that still need to be undertaken.
The trio although uniquely different, come together to collectively share their important learnings in balancing leadership and advocacy whilst developing and maintaining relationships amid complex, and rapidly moving system reform.
Crucially, these learnings incorporate the critical insights of the lived and living experience community.
Through a storytelling model Sheree, Craig and Marie will provide examples and experiences that provide perspectives on
• The value and importance of lived and living experience in cultural transformation.
• Changing a system while being respectful and maintaining important relationships and
partnerships, without compromising the values of our constituents.
• How do you rally and respond? How do you dust yourself off and try again? What are the factors that drive us to keep going?
PANEL PRESENTATION: Navigating collaboration between government and lived and living experts: lessons from a reform environment
Caroline Lambert, Virinda Eden, Katie Jones, Simon Katterl, Jordan Pheasant-Kelly, Kathy Wilson
In 2021 the Victorian government released the final report from the Royal Commission into Mental Health System. Recommendations 1 and 49 of the Report, proposed a new approach to outcomes and performance accountability for the state’s mental health and wellbeing system. Key to these recommendations is the development of a new mental health and wellbeing outcomes and performance framework. In the design and consult phase of this framework development, a Lived Experience Engagement Panel (LEEP) was established. The panel is a mix of mental health consumers and carer who bring diverse experiences and perspectives, and who are tasked with providing expert advice on key themes emerging from data collection, setting priorities, and providing guidance on inclusive language.
This presentation will explore some of the establishment, process and outcome learnings and challenges, from both the perspectives of lived/living panel members and Department of Health staff.
PANEL PRESENTATION: Engaging families and carers in reform implementation in Victoria: Reflections on the process
Caroline Lambert, Amaya Alvarez, Sarah Irving, Kelly Pagram, Karen Rule
Through a co-operative inquiry process, staff members of Tandem (The peak body for family and friends in mental health, Victoria) asked questions and collectively wondered what encouraged and enabled family, carers, kin and supporters of people with mental health challenges to engage and share their stories about navigating complex systems. Tandem, commissioned to prepare tender documents for the establishment of 8 Family Carer-Led Centres across Victoria, adopted a coproduction process to hold the voices and experiences of family, carers, kin and supporters at the heart.
This paper elucidates key learnings from Tandem’s work preparing the tender documents, which commenced February 2022, and despite time pressures, Tandem remained committed to engage with family, carers, kin and supporters throughout Victoria, to gather wisdoms, lived experience understanding and expertise.
Co-operative inquiry is a way of working with people who have similar interests and concerns to explore, understand and develop new and creative ways of viewing the world, an issue or problem, to discover how to do things better (Heron & Reason, 2001; Lloyd & Carson, 2005). Through the four-phases of the cooperative inquiry process, staff members decided on the research question, “what has been learnt about how best to connect with and embed family in making a difference within reform?”.
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