The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission are an independent statutory authority that holds government to account for the performance, quality and safety of Victoria’s mental health and wellbeing system. As an independent body, the MHWC has the powers necessary to perform its functions under the Act. These functions include dealing with complaints, initiating investigations, conducting inquiries, sharing data, reporting on the performance, quality, and safety of Victoria's mental health and wellbeing system, and making recommendations to the Premier, Minister, and heads of public service bodies. Under the Act, the MHWC has the following functions and powers:
- Hold the government to account for the performance, quality and safety of Victoria's mental health and wellbeing system.
- Design and deliver initiatives that create awareness of people with lived experience and their unique experiences, including promoting the role of families, carers and supporters of persons living with mental illness or psychological distress.
- Handle complaints about Victorian publicly funded mental health and wellbeing services, which include mental health and wellbeing services run and delivered by a public hospital in Victoria.
- Elevate lived experience leadership, and support effective participation of people with lived experience in decision making processes.
- Lead and support initiatives to prevent and address stigma related to mental illness.
- Monitor and report on the performance, quality and safety of the mental health and wellbeing system.
- Report on the use of restrictive interventions in mental health and wellbeing services.
- Monitor and report on the progress to improve the mental health and wellbeing of the Victorian community.
- Monitor and report on the progress of implementing the recommendations made by the Royal Commission into Victoria’s mental health system.
- Promote effective complaint handling by mental health and wellbeing service providers.
- Make recommendations to the Premier, Minister and heads of public service bodies.
- Promote and support compliance with the Act and report significant breaches of the Act to the Health Secretary.
The MHCC’s Lived Experience Engagement checklist (the checklist) was designed to support staff working in the public mental health sector to maximise engagement and collaboration with people with lived experience (for project /policy work, consultation, collaboration on pieces of work). The checklist looks to create the greatest possible opportunity to have lived experience expertise influence, design and drive the work within the public mental health sector. The checklist is not an audit of public mental health services, rather it is an opportunity to self-assess the levels of engagement, collaboration and participation with lived experience within your service.
The checklist contains answers in a ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘partially’ format. If the answers you select contain a greater number of ‘no’; and ‘partially’ results as compared to 'yes' then we recommend using the the Lived Experience Engagement Checklist - Further Resources (see below) as a guide to help explore opportunities so that a ‘yes’ can then be selected.
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Australia
The experience of living with and/or supporting loved ones with mental health and/or substance use results in specialised and unique expertise, knowledge and abilities critical to leadership in recovery, wellness, autonomy, authorship and human rights.
Lived and living experience leadership is to be valued and respected. Our expertise is to be used globally to transform systems, services, and societies to unlock the potential of recovery-based approaches and initiatives. We contribute to improving the lives of all who are impacted by challenges to their mental wellbeing, and hold a lens of ensuring citizenship for all impacted by mental health and substance use challenges.
Lived experience leadership inherently involves recognising cultural perspectives to recovery and wellbeing as an authentic knowledge base which embraces opportunities for developing, valuing and respecting people from different cultural backgrounds to practice, through the worldview of their lens. This enhances system transformation.
It is a global imperative to recruit, train, nurture and support authentic lived/living experience leadership throughout all design, delivery, policy development, and evaluation/research efforts.
Lived and living experience leadership must be supported and visible throughout all levels – from individuals leading their own recovery journeys to senior leadership positions to smash through the bigotry of low expectations.
There is an essential need to support leadership among diverse and marginalised populations including people of colour, Indigenous communities, ethnic groups, youth, 2SLGBTQI+, rural, veterans, women, people with disabilities, refugees/ migrants, and others.
Leaders with lived and living experience lead with the critical principles of empowerment, mutual support, rights advancement, respect, and social change. They lead with whole-person approaches, and a belief in resilience, wellness, accountability, self-determination/choice, and social inclusion. They lead, using a strengths-based approach, with the recognition that there are many pathways, and the importance of hope as the catalyst of the recovery journey.
We invite all to join with us in the support of lived and living experience leadership across the globe.
The above was drafted and accepted by participants from 12 nations at the June 24-25, 2024 Lived Experience Leadership Match sponsored by the Global Leadership Exchange. We acknowledge that we do not represent all voices of lived/living experience and honour the leadership of past generations that have created the foundation on which our efforts stand.
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Australia
Guidelines for trauma-informed mental health complaints resolution
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Australia
Organisation
Address: Level 26, 570 Bourke Street Melbourne, 3000.
Country: Australia
Email: help@mhwc.vic.gov.au
