[MAGGIE ] It's Maggie Toko speaking uh welcome to the lived experience engagement checklist video
So like i said it's Maggie Toko -I'm the assistant commissioner of the lived experience and engagement at the Mental Health Complaints Commissioner and I'll be sharing the screen today with Jake McLaughlan - the manager of strategy and communications at the MHCC.
Before I start I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet today and for me that's the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation and acknowledge their elders past present and emerging and I'd also like to mention the fact of colonial and racist power systems that still operate to position Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples systemic exclusion of people with mental health challenges from social civic and economic participation.
I'd also like to recognize people with lived and living experience of trauma neurodiversity mental health challenges psychological distress suicide substance use or addiction, their families carers and supporters.
...and what is the Mental Health Complaints Commissioner -the MHCC is a Victorian independent specialist body set up to safeguard people's rights, resolve complaints and recommend service and system improvements. We're driven by lived experience and the MHCC works with consumers families carers support people and mental health service staff to resolve people's complaints.
We're driven by lived experience. In particular, the framework and strategy which was developed in 2018 and enshrined in the following principle into MHCC's work. We're driven by the voice and collective experience and wisdom of consumers families and carers. We honor and respect lived experience and all our work it asks the MHCC to develop a resource to articulate and build on how we listen, hear recognise and promote the voices of people with lived experience and our approaches and decision making on all levels.
And we're about partnering to build a better system. The Royal Commission and the Victoria's mental health system identified the need to build a better system for the future that is informed by the experience of those who rely on it. In order to do this, it is necessary to address power imbalances and combine clinical knowledge with a diversity of lived experience perspective so we can work together to improve the system MHCC is all about partnering with consumers carers and clinical services.
[JAKE] So what is the lived experience engagement checklist? When we think about what the Royal Commission has called out in that we need to build a better system that is driven by the views of the people who rely on it and people with lived and living experience whether they're consumers carers or family members or support people. We've developed this resource to guide staff in public mental health services to take that step and ensure that their engagement and collaboration with lived experience - people with lived experience is is elevating those voices. So we've tried to keep the checklist practical and and quite simple it outlines the ways you can engage with people with lived and living experiences to ensure that they have the greatest possible opportunity to influence and drive work whether that's projects or initiatives that you're working on that people with lived experience will rely on and use The checklist guides services at every point of the engagement process and provides guidance for services when engaging with people with lived experience with a focus on six key steps in the engagement process. Those are - valuing people's experience, initiating and scoping and engagement collaborating with lived experience, developing content, making decisions and seeking feedback and the checklist - the checklist measures and tracks your engagement process uh and the approach that you're taking against these criteria to understand how you're embedding lived experience perspectives throughout each aspects of these processes in your project or initiative. In terms of who can use the checklist - the MHCC has designed this checklist for staff in public mental health services who are looking to assess and improve their engagement with people with lived or living experiences. At the MHCC, we'll be using it as well and we already do use it to hold ourselves accountable to our driven by lived experience framework and follow through on our commitment to make sure that everything we do is driven by and informed by people with lived experience. The checklist is also open for use for people from other organizations who are looking to improve their engagement um and involvement of people with lived experience and really it is a practical guide to take us from the next step uh you know of um if we're trying to elevate the voices of people with lived experience and embed them into the work that we're doing and building a better system for the future. This checklist is a really practical way um to introduce you to that process In terms of how you can use the checklist and you'll be presented with a series of statements to which you can indicate yes partially or no and each of these statements tracks a different element of your engagement process and tracks it against how it is delivering for people with lived experience. The checklist can be found online at our website at mhcc.vic.gov.au
you can download it as a pdf and complete it on any any device you have or you can print it as well and complete it on paper if you would prefer. As I said the the checklist is fairly simple so once you've actually completed the checklist um what we recommend you do next is review uh review your answers. If you've ticked no or partially to any of the different criteria we suggest you can turn to the further reading list that we've pulled together the further reading which brings together existing knowledge research and resources from across the lived experience sector and mental health sector to help guide your engagement approach. Knowledge and available research is constantly evolving in the sector and the MHCC welcomes suggestions for additions to the list over time if you have any feedback or questions um you can contact the MHCC on info@mhcc.vic.gov If you've got future suggestions for our further reading list and other resources that you would like us to direct people to when working to improve their engagement with people with lived experience in the public mental health system. You can also follow the MHCC on LinkedIn which I really encourage you to do or other social media channels like facebook and instagram if you're looking for updates about resources training and more and thank you for joining us today we really appreciate you taking the time. We hope the checklist provides guidance and support in elevating the voices of lived experience through your engagement process project or initiative. Thank you
Updated