RCH Mental Health is a service committed to placing the lived experience of our infants and children, young people, their families, carers and communities at the centre of everything we do.

Lived Experience Strategy

The Lived Experience Strategy outlines a two year long set of projects that the RCH Mental Health Service will deliver to begin our journey of better integrating and embedding lived experience across our service. The Strategy has been led and written by lived experience staff alongside our Consumer and Carer Advisory groups. We hope that all our staff will join us as we embark on this journey together. We know that the delivery of this Strategy will mean better experiences for the consumers and families/carers we serve.

The RCH Mental Health Service is committed to ensuring all consumers and families/carers have input into the design, delivery and evaluation of our service. We believe that valuing the lived experience of consumers and families/carers is a fundamental part of delivering our service and will aid us in better meeting the needs of the communities we serve. As such, we have prioritised the development of this Strategy in the first year of our Transformation Program to allow us to design projects that will embed the voices of lived experience in the following key domains:

1. Leadership and governance
2. Service planning
3. Design and improvement
4. Service delivery and workforce development and training

The projects outlined in this Strategy (please see pages 12 – 19) demonstrate our commitment to becoming a leader in the lived experience engagement of children in the 0-18 age group, as well as their families/carers and community members. 

RCH MH Service Lived Experience Strategy

RCH MH Service Lived Experience Strategy Summary

What do we hope to achieve?

We hope that this Strategy will be the beginning of a transformation here at the RCH Mental Health Service, where we see further and better integrated lived experience perspective and expertise across the entirety of our service. We have developed an implementation plan in this Strategy that outlines 11 key projects enabling us to continue towards this goal.

For any questions or for further information, please contact Natasha Swingler (she/her), Lived Experience Lead (Consumer/Survivor perspective) at Natasha.Swingler@rch.org.au.