1 00:00:04,620 --> 00:00:06,300 So good morning everyone. 2 00:00:07,260 --> 00:00:09,660 I know we've had a really exciting session. 3 00:00:10,540 --> 00:00:13,540 So great to see open dialogue being discussed. 4 00:00:13,540 --> 00:00:16,500 I know I was at University of Melbourne many, many years ago. 5 00:00:16,500 --> 00:00:21,900 We were looking at the evidence base and the applicability of that and we were wondering why wasn't this happening? 6 00:00:23,300 --> 00:00:29,580 But I'm here to talk to you today about the Working It Out Together toolkit, and this is our launch, so welcome. 7 00:00:29,900 --> 00:00:30,700 My name is Dr. 8 00:00:30,700 --> 00:00:36,780 Catherine Brasier, and I'd like to begin by acknowledging that I'm standing on the lands of the Wurundjeri people. 9 00:00:37,020 --> 00:00:49,740 I'd like to pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging, and I would like to pay my respects to the individuals that are First Nations that contributed to the toolkit from both the men's and women's perspectives. 10 00:00:50,340 --> 00:01:05,020 I'd also like to recognise the contributions and the history of lived experience of deep oppression, of marginalisation, of hope being stolen from us and our futures that have been lost because we were told that nothing good would happen to us now. 11 00:01:05,740 --> 00:01:07,500 Sorry, that feels like a bit of a bummer. 12 00:01:07,820 --> 00:01:09,020 So let's move on. 13 00:01:09,660 --> 00:01:11,420 So my name is Dr. 14 00:01:11,420 --> 00:01:16,300 Catherine Brasier, and I'm a lived experience academic, and I led the Working It Out Together toolkit. 15 00:01:16,700 --> 00:01:25,260 I'd like to thank all of the contributors, many of whom are here today, and some of us are on the panel with us today, and we'll be talking to them. 16 00:01:25,820 --> 00:01:28,060 And I'd also like to thank the members of our EAG. 17 00:01:28,060 --> 00:01:38,380 We had an EAG of 25 experts, and I just want to pay my respects and my great gratitude to them and the support that we've received from the Collaborative Centre. 18 00:01:38,860 --> 00:01:42,979 And so I'm going to start by telling you a little bit about what our toolkit does. 19 00:01:43,900 --> 00:01:48,380 Stumbling through the ED doors, barefooted, grubby PJs. 20 00:01:49,180 --> 00:01:54,500 She's not sure what's happening to her, but she knows that she definitely, definitely needs it to stop. 21 00:01:54,500 --> 00:02:03,580 A nice man takes her to a private room, asks about drug use, self-harm, thoughts of suicide. 22 00:02:04,540 --> 00:02:06,619 How long has it been since you slept? 23 00:02:07,819 --> 00:02:08,699 I think it's been days. 24 00:02:08,699 --> 00:02:09,579 I don't really know. 25 00:02:11,259 --> 00:02:13,019 She follows him through the hospital. 26 00:02:13,179 --> 00:02:16,139 He was nice to her, and she likes him. 27 00:02:17,499 --> 00:02:19,419 He asks her what day it is. 28 00:02:19,819 --> 00:02:24,978 She doesn't know, but then again she says to him, I never really know. 29 00:02:24,978 --> 00:02:26,059 I have a boring job. 30 00:02:26,059 --> 00:02:27,779 Who cares if it's Thursday or Tuesday? 31 00:02:27,779 --> 00:02:29,019 It kind of sucks. 32 00:02:30,299 --> 00:02:35,099 They pass between the hospital building, and as they do so, she sees a sign that says, 33 00:02:35,659 --> 00:02:38,379 psychiatric inpatient unit. 34 00:02:39,179 --> 00:02:42,219 And she thought, Yeah, fair enough. 35 00:02:43,739 --> 00:02:45,499 She wasn't worried about the diagnosis. 36 00:02:46,139 --> 00:02:52,619 What she did know in that moment was this sense that she had just lost something that she cannot get back. 37 00:02:54,059 --> 00:03:04,859 And she knew people in her life would feel validated, like this would help them know that they were better than her if they found out that this had happened. 38 00:03:06,219 --> 00:03:15,339 And just like that graduate, an artist and a scholar, that promising future was gone. 39 00:03:15,579 --> 00:03:18,019 That nice man becomes a case manager. 40 00:03:18,699 --> 00:03:22,499 He runs a Youth Day program that she goes to. 41 00:03:23,499 --> 00:03:25,579 This is where she makes all of her friends. 42 00:03:25,659 --> 00:03:26,939 All of her old friends are gone. 43 00:03:26,939 --> 00:03:31,179 Her and her new friends call this crazy group. 44 00:03:33,339 --> 00:03:35,019 And she's developed a new mantra. 45 00:03:35,339 --> 00:03:40,219 It says, Friends that don't call ambulances when you need one aren't really your friends after all. 46 00:03:40,539 --> 00:03:42,379 She's glad that those people are gone. 47 00:03:43,739 --> 00:03:45,659 Fast forward six, eight months. 48 00:03:46,459 --> 00:03:52,219 She's moved back out of her parents' house at the request of her old housemate. 49 00:03:52,779 --> 00:03:54,539 He says, Come move in with me again. 50 00:03:54,539 --> 00:03:56,939 Those old housemates are gone. 51 00:03:57,179 --> 00:03:59,819 And you've got that same thing that my dad does. 52 00:04:00,659 --> 00:04:03,459 And she moves back in and she's terrified. 53 00:04:03,819 --> 00:04:05,659 She doesn't know what's going to happen next. 54 00:04:06,459 --> 00:04:11,819 And he says to her, her housemate says to her, I have to introduce you to someone. 55 00:04:11,978 --> 00:04:14,299 She just went through the same thing that you did. 56 00:04:14,659 --> 00:04:17,499 And he introduces her to his friend Sally. 57 00:04:18,139 --> 00:04:23,659 She also had a mental health diagnosis that made people say, What a shame, she had a bright future. 58 00:04:25,339 --> 00:04:27,419 But actually, she was fine. 59 00:04:27,579 --> 00:04:30,379 In fact, she was in school, she was dating and loving life. 60 00:04:32,459 --> 00:04:37,579 And Kitty thought, if she could do this, maybe I could too. 61 00:04:38,859 --> 00:04:47,499 And as the share house overflowed with hippies, ravers and rebels, a number of which had had hospital admissions, this was a normal part of her social world. 62 00:04:47,819 --> 00:04:49,979 No one cared and it didn't make her special. 63 00:04:50,939 --> 00:04:53,179 People listened to her and they were kind to her. 64 00:04:54,579 --> 00:04:59,659 Still, everything was scary, and she thought, What is next? 65 00:05:02,819 --> 00:05:04,539 And this is what was next. 66 00:05:05,059 --> 00:05:05,899 That was me. 67 00:05:05,899 --> 00:05:07,419 That's actually my story. 68 00:05:07,779 --> 00:05:11,859 What I didn't know at the time was I was going to retrain and become a mental health worker. 69 00:05:12,179 --> 00:05:15,019 I'm a little bit too old to be a peer worker. 70 00:05:15,019 --> 00:05:16,539 We didn't have much peer work back then. 71 00:05:16,779 --> 00:05:19,099 I was a psychosocial rehabilitation worker. 72 00:05:19,539 --> 00:05:28,459 And I worked with complex and different people throughout my career and doing a lot of outreach and residential work. 73 00:05:31,339 --> 00:05:50,939 And that became a really important moving point for me because it helped me understand the experiences of other people and people who had very different lives from me, people who had deep levels of marginalisation, intergenerational trauma and intergenerational forms of deep psychosis and experiences like that. 74 00:05:52,139 --> 00:05:55,179 From then, I pivoted and I became an academic. 75 00:05:55,259 --> 00:06:08,858 As an academic, it was my goal to take what I'd learnt as a worker and what I'd learnt from my lived experience and have an opportunity to apply it and use it on a greater number of people and to impact policy and practice much more broadly. 76 00:06:09,338 --> 00:06:10,458 So that is what I did. 77 00:06:11,658 --> 00:06:15,578 I'm now the National Manager for Evaluation and Research at Wellways. 78 00:06:16,218 --> 00:06:22,858 And it was our great pleasure to work on the Working It Out Together research toolkit with the Collaborative Centre. 79 00:06:24,298 --> 00:06:26,818 I'm going to give you a little bit of an introduction today. 80 00:06:26,818 --> 00:06:32,058 I won't talk for too long, because we'll move over to the panel on the interesting thoughts and ideas that they have to share. 81 00:06:33,178 --> 00:06:37,738 But we started off this project by doing a fairly significant scoping review. 82 00:06:37,738 --> 00:06:40,938 We had 81 papers included, and we did it in 11 weeks. 83 00:06:40,938 --> 00:06:42,138 That's some feat. 84 00:06:42,658 --> 00:07:03,418 What we found about our research into understanding about not just having people as study participants, but people with lived experience involved in the development, the conduct, and the sharing of research, was that there was really strong evidence and really strong calls for this to happen for even up to 20 years ago, and a great philosophy 85 00:07:04,178 --> 00:07:06,698 great philosophies and values that underpin that. 86 00:07:07,098 --> 00:07:13,578 But really nobody was writing about how to do this stuff, so things just kind of weren't progressing. 87 00:07:13,818 --> 00:07:15,818 What was really missing was the how. 88 00:07:16,458 --> 00:07:25,018 The Collaborative Centre came back to us after a little while and they said, We're really interested in the recommendations that you wrote, and we really want to address the how. 89 00:07:25,858 --> 00:07:52,578 So our project that we'll be introducing and launching today is about how to do research that is lived experience centered by including people who have consumer lived experience, experience of distress, trauma, of neurodiversity, as well as individuals who have the lived experience of being a family carer, supporter, kin, and alike. 90 00:07:53,378 --> 00:07:55,658 So that's what we'll be talking about. 91 00:07:57,578 --> 00:08:03,898 So we undertook a really significant project around this. 92 00:08:04,218 --> 00:08:08,778 And I'm just leaving you here with just what I've got is just a brief skeleton of the project. 93 00:08:09,098 --> 00:08:19,978 But I want to talk about, as I leave that lingering on the stage, four main key products which have just been released by the Collaborative Centre that are now live and available on their website. 94 00:08:20,138 --> 00:08:22,298 I'll have the link on the final slide. 95 00:08:22,618 --> 00:08:23,298 It includes 96 00:08:23,378 --> 00:08:29,818 It includes two reports, a pilot report from what we did to look at the final product. 97 00:08:30,138 --> 00:08:39,298 It also includes a really deep, rich report about all of the information that we collected that became the evidence base for the toolkit and workbook. 98 00:08:39,977 --> 00:08:52,778 But I think the bit that people are most likely to be interested in and excited about and hopefully will use will be these two bits, which is the workbook and toolkit and the concise workbook and toolkit. 99 00:08:53,338 --> 00:08:57,178 Both of them share the structure that we've got on screen today. 100 00:08:57,498 --> 00:09:01,258 So as you can see, we've basically got six research stages. 101 00:09:01,418 --> 00:09:10,778 Most of them will be fairly familiar to all of us who do research, in addition to a final research stage, which looks at the evaluation and the impact of the research. 102 00:09:11,218 --> 00:09:22,298 And when I say that, what I mean is, did the researchers listen and change what they were going to do based on the impact and the input of lived experience people in their team? 103 00:09:24,698 --> 00:09:30,938 The difference that we've got between the toolkit and the concise toolkit is pretty simple. 104 00:09:31,018 --> 00:09:35,098 The toolkit is the larger, more comprehensive resource. 105 00:09:35,498 --> 00:09:42,178 It includes basic information about all these different stages and levels of a research process. 106 00:09:42,178 --> 00:09:50,858 So it's ideal for people who might not be familiar with research, who might be doing it for the first time, or who might be doing it in partnership with services or other researchers. 107 00:09:52,058 --> 00:09:54,538 And so it has some background information. 108 00:09:54,698 --> 00:10:07,818 It also has some consumer commentaries by me, because quite frankly, when I went to talk about many of these stages of research and how you'd involve lived experience, it simply isn't represented in peer-reviewed literature. 109 00:10:08,138 --> 00:10:10,378 So it had to come through as a consumer commentary. 110 00:10:11,018 --> 00:10:13,537 There's two more components that are really important. 111 00:10:13,537 --> 00:10:15,977 We'll have a quick look at them before we finish today. 112 00:10:16,457 --> 00:10:23,737 One is that for every action that we have up here, there is also a matching workbook exercise. 113 00:10:23,897 --> 00:10:30,377 So there is something that you can do that is practical, that you can bring the whole team together and you can work on it together. 114 00:10:30,777 --> 00:10:35,497 And that's the difference between the workbook and the toolkit and the concise toolkit. 115 00:10:35,737 --> 00:10:40,857 The concise toolkit just has some very foundational information and the workbook 116 00:10:41,057 --> 00:10:44,537 exercises so that you can come together as a team. 117 00:10:44,777 --> 00:10:47,977 You don't have to flick forward and back through all of the information. 118 00:10:48,137 --> 00:10:51,977 You can just work through the workbook exercises in the way that suits you. 119 00:10:54,057 --> 00:11:03,017 This probably looks to people like a fairly normal research 120 00:11:03,537 --> 00:11:04,097 process. 121 00:11:04,097 --> 00:11:10,457 And I've got to say that I also trained as a social worker, we talk about the idea of smuggling things in. 122 00:11:10,457 --> 00:11:19,897 And I want to just draw attention to a couple of the things that we have smuggled in, sneakily but completely openly, into this toolkit. 123 00:11:20,097 --> 00:11:24,097 I'm going to give you three examples and then I'm going to let you explore on your own. 124 00:11:24,777 --> 00:11:26,937 Feel free to come back to me and have a conversation as well. 125 00:11:26,937 --> 00:11:28,137 Feel free to LinkedIn on me. 126 00:11:28,697 --> 00:11:33,457 The first thing that we asked to do that is a foundational difference is action one. 127 00:11:34,057 --> 00:11:38,537 We want you to create a lived experience, intention, impact statement. 128 00:11:38,777 --> 00:11:42,137 Your intention cannot be to build on your track record. 129 00:11:42,377 --> 00:11:43,417 I don't want to know that. 130 00:11:43,657 --> 00:11:51,977 I want you to tell me what do you intend for the people that you are hoping to impact for in your research. 131 00:11:52,417 --> 00:12:01,457 And I want you to think about and consider what the impacts would be, including what are the unintentional and intentional impacts. 132 00:12:01,457 --> 00:12:07,497 So sometimes when we think about the use of clinical language and a really objective language, what's the impact of that? 133 00:12:07,577 --> 00:12:08,657 I want us to think about that. 134 00:12:08,657 --> 00:12:13,617 It also gives you an opportunity to see if your intention and your impacts are in alignment. 135 00:12:14,057 --> 00:12:21,577 My next sneaky thing that I was very proud of smuggling in was actually action three, which is identify a research question. 136 00:12:21,817 --> 00:12:22,257 Yeah, we 137 00:12:22,417 --> 00:12:22,857 have to do that. 138 00:12:22,857 --> 00:12:24,377 That's the basis of research. 139 00:12:24,777 --> 00:12:37,657 But the sneaky, sneaky, sneaky bit that I did is that you have to then take that research question and take it to the community that you are hoping to impact, that your study is based in, and ask them if it's important to them. 140 00:12:37,897 --> 00:12:39,657 Did you understand it in the same way? 141 00:12:39,657 --> 00:12:42,777 Have you got it wrong, or is it something that they don't even want to happen? 142 00:12:43,217 --> 00:12:50,137 And the reason this was important to me was when I was doing peer review and I was doing grants, for stuff that I didn't care about, I didn't want that. 143 00:12:50,377 --> 00:12:58,457 So I know that we're creating research that matters to us, that sounds good to us, but we're not challenging it by checking with the people who it really matters to. 144 00:12:59,577 --> 00:13:08,377 The last thing, which was also a unique stage of this process, was making sure that you created a plan where you 145 00:13:09,577 --> 00:13:25,977 Detailed the decision-making and power structure of your research team: who got to say no, how, and when, and we did this very clearly in the way that we ran our project we ran and developed this in a walk-the-walk way. 146 00:13:26,537 --> 00:13:32,697 And so we used the lived experience action log in all of our expert advisory groups, and we'll have a look at that in a minute. 147 00:13:33,097 --> 00:13:49,377 And then at the end, we would have to take that back to our key stakeholder and tell them which bits we weren't able to implement, or that we didn't implement, or we didn't want to implement, and show them how we had actually integrated all of the lived experience advice that we had gotten from the EAGs through. 148 00:13:49,377 --> 00:13:51,097 So I'm going to give us a quick look at that. 149 00:13:53,137 --> 00:13:54,137 So here we go. 150 00:13:54,417 --> 00:13:55,817 I'm just giving you an example. 151 00:13:55,817 --> 00:14:01,177 As I said before, for each of the actions there was also a matching workbook exercise. 152 00:14:01,577 --> 00:14:10,217 So here's just a little bit, it's a little bit cropped out, but a little brief example of what some of those workbook exercises look like. 153 00:14:10,617 --> 00:14:14,616 They are designed and they are encouraged always to be quite flexible. 154 00:14:14,856 --> 00:14:19,656 So the last question which we can't see on this is, Do you want to add any questions of your own? 155 00:14:19,896 --> 00:14:23,056 The toolkit is designed to be bespoke and to be flexible. 156 00:14:23,256 --> 00:14:26,696 It's just designed to keep you on track and be authentic as well. 157 00:14:27,896 --> 00:14:32,376 This is the other bit that I was talking about just before, which is how to do a lived experience action log. 158 00:14:32,856 --> 00:14:46,696 Well, I mean, if we have a look at this, because that's really just your minutes, isn't it, that we have at the end of our meeting, except what we do to keep ourselves accountable and to evaluate how successful we've been in integrating lived experience input. 159 00:14:47,656 --> 00:14:53,016 is to add those last two columns, which is outcome A, did you or did you not integrate this? 160 00:14:53,696 --> 00:14:58,056 And then if you didn't integrate it, that very final question says why. 161 00:14:58,936 --> 00:15:00,216 You have to tell us why. 162 00:15:01,976 --> 00:15:06,856 So that's my very super speedy, super quick introduction to our toolkit. 163 00:15:07,336 --> 00:15:11,696 As you can see here, we have got the link and it's just online. 164 00:15:11,696 --> 00:15:14,936 It's pretty easy to find on the site as well if you would like to Google it. 165 00:15:15,776 --> 00:15:19,576 I do think that this has a further translational potential. 166 00:15:19,736 --> 00:15:24,216 We're really interested in using it in quality and safety and across our organization. 167 00:15:24,216 --> 00:15:26,056 It's not just for researchers. 168 00:15:26,856 --> 00:15:30,856 It can have a great bearing on practice and translation as well. 169 00:15:31,496 --> 00:15:37,656 So thank you very much for listening, my kind audience, my rebels and my co-conspirators. 170 00:15:38,936 --> 00:15:41,096 And I hope you get a chance to check this out. 171 00:15:41,096 --> 00:15:44,776 Feel free to come up and talk to us, and I'd like to throw to Paul for the panel. 172 00:15:51,736 --> 00:15:52,456 Thanks, Catherine. 173 00:15:52,776 --> 00:15:53,415 Welcome. 174 00:15:53,736 --> 00:15:56,856 Great to be here for this important conversation. 175 00:15:57,016 --> 00:15:58,136 I'm Paul Barclay. 176 00:15:58,136 --> 00:16:06,136 I'm a broadcaster, journalist, podcaster, and MC, whose microphone's feeding back a little bit at the moment. 177 00:16:06,136 --> 00:16:09,736 So maybe whoever's in control can just keep that 178 00:16:10,736 --> 00:16:11,416 under control. 179 00:16:11,816 --> 00:16:25,576 I'll be moderating this panel and we'll be examining how we can work out together some of the matters that were just raised by Kat, and I'm sure that I'll be learning a lot in the process myself. 180 00:16:25,896 --> 00:16:40,136 There is a lot of talk about co-production, lived and living experience, leadership and research translation, but in practice all of that can feel a bit messy, can raise questions about power, 181 00:16:40,616 --> 00:16:45,415 language, evidence, and whose knowledge actually counts. 182 00:16:45,816 --> 00:16:59,656 The working it out together toolkit shows that when lived and living experience is centered from the beginning, not added in later as an afterthought, it can change the quality of the work. 183 00:16:59,896 --> 00:17:07,576 It alters the questions that we ask, the relationships that we build, and ultimately the outcomes we're all working towards. 184 00:17:08,296 --> 00:17:10,136 But there are tensions. 185 00:17:10,616 --> 00:17:30,936 Between clinical and personal understandings of recovery, between structure and flexibility, between research rigor and relational ways of working, so this discussion really is about sharing what it looks like to do all of this in practice, what is working, what is difficult. 186 00:17:31,456 --> 00:17:33,056 and what we're still figuring out. 187 00:17:33,056 --> 00:17:39,016 You're going to hear from people across research, services and lived and living experience leadership. 188 00:17:39,096 --> 00:17:44,456 Each will bring their own perspective on what it takes to genuinely work together. 189 00:17:44,456 --> 00:17:46,376 We'll hear from each of them. 190 00:17:46,536 --> 00:17:54,376 I'll ask a couple of questions of each of the panelists and then, time permitting, maybe we can do a bit of an interactive discussion at the end. 191 00:17:54,376 --> 00:17:56,256 We'll see how we go for time. 192 00:17:56,256 --> 00:18:01,096 Let me introduce you to the panel and on my immediate left, as you've just heard, 193 00:18:01,456 --> 00:18:02,216 is Dr. 194 00:18:02,376 --> 00:18:07,936 Catherine Brasier, National Manager of Evaluation and Research Lived Experience at Wellways. 195 00:18:07,936 --> 00:18:17,296 And Catherine's focus, as you've probably gathered, is on supporting better connections between people with lived experience, research and service delivery development. 196 00:18:17,296 --> 00:18:23,415 And she previously led the lived experience leadership team at Wellways. 197 00:18:24,215 --> 00:18:27,735 Sitting next to Kat, we have Leanne Byrne. 198 00:18:28,695 --> 00:18:34,495 Manager Lived Experience Sector Partnership at the Victorian Collaborative Centre. 199 00:18:34,935 --> 00:18:56,215 Leanne is a lived and living experience leader with extensive experience across consumer peer work, service reform and system level workplace development in Victoria and is currently Manager, as I mentioned, Manager Lived Experience Sector Partnerships at the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing. 200 00:18:56,295 --> 00:18:58,375 Next to Leanne is 201 00:18:58,495 --> 00:19:09,895 Carolyn Lyle, PhD candidate, final year, I understand, in her PhD in sociology within the Department of Social Inquiry at La Trobe University. 202 00:19:10,135 --> 00:19:11,335 Good luck with that. 203 00:19:11,975 --> 00:19:20,295 And Carolyn's research focuses on young people with depression and/or anxiety within the university sector. 204 00:19:21,735 --> 00:19:24,295 Next to Carolyn, we have Alec Scott. 205 00:19:24,775 --> 00:19:27,575 Alec is a consumer consultant with Western Health and 206 00:19:28,695 --> 00:19:38,535 and a lived experience mental health professional with over five years of experience across public and community mental health sectors. 207 00:19:38,975 --> 00:19:39,735 Hello, Alec. 208 00:19:39,895 --> 00:19:51,655 And on the very end of the panel, we have Jason Thompson, Professor of Mental Health System Reform at the University of Melbourne, a registered psychologist. 209 00:19:53,335 --> 00:19:59,895 And look, I think without any further ado, maybe let's get into some of the questions now that you know everyone who's here. 210 00:20:01,095 --> 00:20:09,135 Yeah, Kat, if I can come to you first of all, and thanks for sharing the toolkit information with us. 211 00:20:09,135 --> 00:20:12,295 I thought we'd just bring this back to what this is all 212 00:20:12,815 --> 00:20:13,735 really about. 213 00:20:13,895 --> 00:20:27,735 What does fundamentally shift when lived and living experience is centred from the beginning of a project rather than brought in later on, which I think has often previously been the case? 214 00:20:31,015 --> 00:20:33,255 The biggest thing that I see is we just do it wrong. 215 00:20:34,855 --> 00:20:36,535 We don't understand. 216 00:20:36,535 --> 00:20:39,015 We often treat people as others. 217 00:20:39,335 --> 00:20:40,375 They're unfamiliar to us. 218 00:20:40,375 --> 00:20:43,255 We don't understand their lives, their experiences. 219 00:20:43,255 --> 00:20:50,535 And the biggest mistake that we make is that we think that we know, or we think that we know because we've been workers or we've been researchers. 220 00:20:50,775 --> 00:20:58,815 But there's fundamental gaps of knowledge between what the people who have those real-life experiences have and what we have when we stand 221 00:20:58,935 --> 00:21:01,655 back from a different point of view. 222 00:21:02,215 --> 00:21:12,375 I often talk a lot about how the people that I worked with, my participants are almost always completely left out of any form of research service delivery. 223 00:21:12,975 --> 00:21:26,335 because they were so marginalised and their lives are so different that when you get a group of people together in a university or in the department, they simply cannot imagine the complexities and the realities of people's lives. 224 00:21:26,335 --> 00:21:41,775 So they cannot imagine people who aren't good with numbers or have trouble planning or, you know, I remember having a worker that sat next to me, she was charging off with a potato peeler because the person that she worked with, 225 00:21:42,495 --> 00:21:50,695 His mum had also had really impactful forms of schizophrenia and didn't know how to cook and hadn't passed on life skills. 226 00:21:51,095 --> 00:21:56,535 And she was going to teach him how to peel a potato because he had to keep buying takeaway because he couldn't cook. 227 00:21:57,015 --> 00:22:01,495 So these are realities and experiences that people can't imagine. 228 00:22:01,975 --> 00:22:03,255 Also, different forms 229 00:22:03,655 --> 00:22:10,455 of being unwell are really difficult for people to imagine and they're almost impossible to explain. 230 00:22:10,455 --> 00:22:25,254 So because we've been so left out of the development of the research question and we haven't had appropriate ways of capturing information that's important to us and targeting things that are important to us, we just missed the mark. 231 00:22:25,574 --> 00:22:26,134 Yeah. 232 00:22:28,334 --> 00:22:30,254 I'll grab the microphone back off if you don't mind. 233 00:22:30,254 --> 00:22:42,774 And also, I think it's important to bear in mind that people who experience serious mental health challenges and trauma are frequently much more capable than is commonly thought, right? 234 00:22:42,854 --> 00:22:54,934 How important is it to get that message across, the message that people who are experiencing these challenges are not hopeless, but actually can in fact be quite capable? 235 00:22:54,934 --> 00:22:57,134 I mean, that's me, isn't it? 236 00:22:59,014 --> 00:23:00,774 We saw my consumer journey. 237 00:23:01,094 --> 00:23:04,774 And I've got to say, this is the weirdest thing, and it's hard to admit because it's a bit political. 238 00:23:05,054 --> 00:23:21,494 But the difference between me sitting in here today and me sitting in a flat in Corio in my ugg boots is the fact that I had a psychiatrist who was quite a radical psychiatrist and a clinician who was also quite radical, who saw me from a holistic and from a psychosocial area. 239 00:23:21,774 --> 00:23:25,894 And they always held the hope, and they just kept telling me, like, no, we think you're going to be OK. 240 00:23:26,454 --> 00:23:31,494 And if it wasn't for those voices, and those messages weren't going to come from my culture. 241 00:23:31,494 --> 00:23:35,734 They weren't going to overcome the stigma that I'd grown up in. 242 00:23:35,734 --> 00:23:37,574 It wasn't going to come from my family. 243 00:23:37,894 --> 00:23:41,134 It was actually people in mental health services that said, I think you're going to be okay. 244 00:23:41,134 --> 00:23:42,374 You're going to get through this. 245 00:23:42,934 --> 00:23:44,134 Just keep going. 246 00:23:44,614 --> 00:23:52,934 And it doesn't mean, I mean, hopefully all clinicians carry those messages, but hopefully all of us in the community can hold that message. 247 00:23:53,454 --> 00:24:02,294 I talk about this idea of disinheritance, and we saw that in the video, which is the future that you thought you were going to have where you were going to be successful and maybe go to a uni and do a PhD. 248 00:24:02,614 --> 00:24:15,174 Because you've had this critical and acute stigmatised experience, that gets taken away from you, and that possibility of you being successful is just automatically disinherited. 249 00:24:15,574 --> 00:24:17,734 So that's one of the concepts I think about for that. 250 00:24:18,094 --> 00:24:18,534 Thanks, Paul. 251 00:24:19,014 --> 00:24:19,574 Thanks, Kat. 252 00:24:20,014 --> 00:24:20,934 Alec, I'll come to you. 253 00:24:21,374 --> 00:24:23,654 and just make sure you've got your mic switched on. 254 00:24:24,694 --> 00:24:33,814 You're working within the services where these ideas must translate into everyday practice if we are to get anywhere. 255 00:24:34,894 --> 00:24:47,414 What does it take to move from we valued lived experience to genuinely embedding that in service delivery or quality improvement? 256 00:24:49,174 --> 00:24:50,374 Yeah, thanks for the question. 257 00:24:50,694 --> 00:25:06,294 I think the first thing is just going to actually just stop doing what they're doing and actually try to build genuine partnerships with consumers, carers, with the community, and stuff that's actually going to be representative of the diversity of the catchments in the communities. 258 00:25:07,494 --> 00:25:15,654 And I think the other thing is just to try and avoid the tokenism, which is still just kind of really, really present throughout 259 00:25:16,614 --> 00:25:30,294 If it's in service design or quality improvement and stuff like that, and actually look at being upfront with consumers and carers about what the level of their kind of influence is gonna be, stuff like that, and setting those clear expectations. 260 00:25:30,694 --> 00:25:35,654 But there's some really cool things from the toolkit, which I think can really help guide that along. 261 00:25:35,654 --> 00:25:45,254 I think the Brave Space Agreement is actually, it seems like a really kind of simple task from its outset, but it's actually a really cool one in terms of how it 262 00:25:46,174 --> 00:25:54,854 allows the groups to decide on their terms how they want to engage, how they want to work, what they want to speak about, and gives them the kind of power. 263 00:25:54,854 --> 00:26:05,334 It also allows to ensure that the group's kind of meeting the, I guess, the diverse communication styles, just the general diversity of different kind of areas that we live in. 264 00:26:06,454 --> 00:26:13,894 And I think the other thing is around, I think one of the biggest frustrations we hear about is like, from consumers and carers is the 265 00:26:15,494 --> 00:26:18,054 We ask for feedback and stuff, and it just doesn't go anywhere. 266 00:26:18,054 --> 00:26:24,933 There's never any kind of resolution on what's kind of heard, whether the change could be enacted, where it couldn't be enacted. 267 00:26:25,653 --> 00:26:35,173 So I think even stuff like the action log is really good, because it actually brings that accountability to actually follow things up, and it allows you to try and close that feedback loop if things... 268 00:26:36,613 --> 00:26:45,333 If things can't be enacted, actually going back to the group and explaining, like, telling them that and explaining why, stuff like that, and where maybe stuff that they've spoken about could be used elsewhere. 269 00:26:45,973 --> 00:26:59,533 So that's the tokenism that you mentioned before, where we say that we're committed to this idea of integrating the experiences of lived experience people and 270 00:26:59,933 --> 00:27:03,253 the fact that that actually doesn't happen, they're just words. 271 00:27:04,213 --> 00:27:17,173 Talk to us about where we are seeing this embedding taking place, and also where we're seeing services getting stuck, where I suppose the positives and the negatives, what are you seeing? 272 00:27:17,493 --> 00:27:25,813 Yeah, well, I think like, you know, if you look at it from two ways over the last like five years since the Royal Commission, where there's actually been some really like kind of meaningful 273 00:27:26,133 --> 00:27:43,253 Kind of change in development stuff, and in terms of in governance and service design stuff, but at the same time, it's all just being very frustratingly slow and kind of always seems to be pushed aside, but I think, yeah, I think the biggest thing is just around... 274 00:27:45,653 --> 00:27:57,493 getting rid of just being present in situations and actually looking at ways we could really embed lived experience into things like governance and stuff like that to really kind of bring around that structural changes that's needed. 275 00:27:57,973 --> 00:28:08,133 And I think, yeah, and just even things that's like, so when I say that, so the governance structures, we often want to try and bring 276 00:28:09,133 --> 00:28:13,293 lived experience in into those existing like clinical structures and stuff like that, which doesn't work. 277 00:28:13,293 --> 00:28:17,653 We still have to use the clinical language, like the clinical kind of hierarchies and stuff like that. 278 00:28:17,893 --> 00:28:28,653 Whereas I think that like we need to actually look at ways to create governance structures that, to include them in, go beyond including, to actually embed them into everything that we kind of do. 279 00:28:29,813 --> 00:28:33,373 And yeah, I think, yeah, that's where like, again, just even things just around 280 00:28:33,773 --> 00:28:41,973 closing a feedback loop to something so simple that doesn't cost any kind of much money is something that could actually just show like consumer care is what's actually happening. 281 00:28:42,773 --> 00:28:51,973 And it's even just for like peer, you hear from peer workers who just say like, well, I don't understand like why has nothing changed, anything like that. 282 00:28:52,213 --> 00:28:57,973 And it's because, you know, the changes are usually it's like kind of really incremental like and small that they can't see them. 283 00:28:58,293 --> 00:29:00,453 But yeah, I think there's like, 284 00:29:01,333 --> 00:29:05,493 Yeah, I think we're doing baby steps and I think we are getting somewhere positive. 285 00:29:05,893 --> 00:29:09,893 Yeah, change takes a long time, doesn't it? 286 00:29:09,893 --> 00:29:10,893 Just quickly. 287 00:29:10,893 --> 00:29:12,053 Yeah, very quickly. 288 00:29:12,773 --> 00:29:16,613 So there's the idea in research that if you can't count it, it doesn't exist. 289 00:29:16,613 --> 00:29:20,053 So we just made sure that we could count lots of stuff when we put together the toolkit. 290 00:29:20,373 --> 00:29:29,653 And one of the other tools that goes with that is there's a bit where you can look at all the phases, how, where, and what was the outcome of lived experience being involved. 291 00:29:29,653 --> 00:29:34,093 So really knuckling down and giving things that services can use. 292 00:29:34,093 --> 00:29:36,773 So just want to promo that other tool. 293 00:29:37,973 --> 00:29:38,293 Great. 294 00:29:38,293 --> 00:29:38,773 Thanks, Kat. 295 00:29:39,413 --> 00:29:40,933 Caroline, if I can bring you in. 296 00:29:41,013 --> 00:29:48,093 You've spoken about the tension between being a researcher and having lived and living experience. 297 00:29:48,093 --> 00:29:54,933 What has helped you navigate this tension and what remains difficult within academic environments? 298 00:29:56,533 --> 00:30:04,533 I mean, one of the things that helped me navigate it was working at Wellways and having an excellent team leader in Kat. 299 00:30:06,933 --> 00:30:15,573 I hadn't really met an academic who identified as having lived and living experience before that. 300 00:30:17,413 --> 00:30:29,652 And I had a lot of internalized stigma around coming out with lived, well, living experience with mental illness. 301 00:30:35,132 --> 00:30:44,212 which was partly, which has been partly helped by my own work around stigma, both internal and public stigma. 302 00:30:45,332 --> 00:30:48,052 But I think a lot of my stigma is internalized. 303 00:30:48,052 --> 00:30:52,812 So, sorry, what was the rest of the question? 304 00:30:53,092 --> 00:30:56,932 Yeah, I might just, just that issue of stigma, I think is so important. 305 00:30:57,332 --> 00:30:59,772 And I was just thinking back to the 306 00:31:01,252 --> 00:31:14,452 the video we had at the beginning of this session, and that line, All of her old friends are gone, which is just such a powerful line, knocks you in the back of your seat, really. 307 00:31:14,452 --> 00:31:16,732 And it's interesting, isn't it? 308 00:31:16,732 --> 00:31:27,892 Because often the people who you're closest to, the people who you have the most close relationships with, are the people who stigmatize you the most. 309 00:31:28,292 --> 00:31:30,612 That must be incredibly difficult. 310 00:31:31,252 --> 00:31:40,172 Yes, and it really actually relates to what Kat said about that future that you imagined kind of being gone. 311 00:31:40,172 --> 00:31:48,852 When I was younger, I imagined having a very bright future and that, as a teenager, disappeared. 312 00:31:49,652 --> 00:31:55,732 And I definitely couldn't imagine myself sitting up here, being in the final year of a PhD, 10 years ago. 313 00:31:56,932 --> 00:31:59,012 I was 314 00:31:59,732 --> 00:32:25,092 fairly dark place, and that future has only come about because of the support of people, of my treatment team, of my supervisors, of people like Kat, and pushing back against the stigma that people with lived experience can't do things. 315 00:32:27,252 --> 00:32:42,612 Yeah, I think the point that you're raising that I think is really important is the personal interactions, having people that understand within academia, understand and can genuinely open themselves up to your own experience. 316 00:32:43,172 --> 00:32:51,012 What then needs to change so that research feels more open and authentic for people coming into it? 317 00:32:51,012 --> 00:32:55,612 Is it just about having more individuals to provide you with support? 318 00:32:55,612 --> 00:32:56,852 What else needs to change? 319 00:32:57,332 --> 00:33:03,452 It's a whole structural system, because there's a whole publish or perish culture there's... 320 00:33:04,932 --> 00:33:27,852 because it's such a, it's not a culture that I, as someone with mental illness right now, could be involved with, as it is just so, I feel like I have to hold myself to higher standards because I have mental illness. 321 00:33:29,252 --> 00:33:30,292 I feel like 322 00:33:32,772 --> 00:33:43,172 I can't let myself slip because it's just such high stakes at the moment within universities to push yourself. 323 00:33:44,772 --> 00:33:51,292 So structurally that needs to change, I think for everyone, but particularly for people with lived experience. 324 00:33:51,892 --> 00:34:01,012 Yeah, look, I mean, I spent a lot of my life in a previous life as a journalist at the ABC talking to academics, hanging around universities. 325 00:34:01,012 --> 00:34:05,572 My partner is a university professor who's supervised countless PhDs. 326 00:34:06,452 --> 00:34:13,452 I can tell you how much I understand about the pressure of undertaking a PhD for anyone, actually. 327 00:34:13,452 --> 00:34:16,292 I mean, it's a high pressure, high stakes world. 328 00:34:16,292 --> 00:34:18,292 So all the best. 329 00:34:19,012 --> 00:34:23,812 And hopefully you find the support and get the structural change that's needed. 330 00:34:24,411 --> 00:34:26,612 I'll hand to Kat and then we'll go to Leanne. 331 00:34:27,012 --> 00:34:31,291 I just want to acknowledge the ways that we handled that. 332 00:34:31,291 --> 00:34:33,251 As I said, we will walk the walk project. 333 00:34:33,491 --> 00:34:36,451 Some of the features of our structure were really important. 334 00:34:36,451 --> 00:34:45,731 So we had Carolyn and Alex who just worked together like champions so that we had people being able to peer support and learn from different lived experiences together. 335 00:34:45,971 --> 00:34:48,130 Claire, do you want to give us a big wave? 336 00:34:48,130 --> 00:34:48,690 You're in the 337 00:34:49,491 --> 00:35:04,451 She was one of our social work students who were trained to work from an allyship position and also to acknowledge Rob who was located in Shepparton but was also a part of our team who was also trained to work from an allyship position. 338 00:35:04,451 --> 00:35:09,891 So there are ways that we can structure and pull things together and that was just one good example. 339 00:35:11,651 --> 00:35:14,331 So, Leanne, I'll bring you into the conversation now. 340 00:35:14,371 --> 00:35:20,211 You're working at a system level, thinking about workforce and partnerships across Victoria. 341 00:35:20,491 --> 00:35:30,971 What does meaningful co-production or collaboration, I suppose, look like to you, where there are lots of stakeholders, pressures and competing priorities? 342 00:35:30,971 --> 00:35:31,971 Can you talk us through that? 343 00:35:33,091 --> 00:35:33,811 Absolutely. 344 00:35:34,611 --> 00:35:38,371 I'd have to say, if you asked me that question five years ago, I would have said, what's co-production? 345 00:35:39,011 --> 00:35:43,971 So my understanding has certainly evolved over a relatively short period of time. 346 00:35:44,851 --> 00:35:52,291 But I think it's really important to be clear about the fact it's not just bringing additional people into the room. 347 00:35:53,171 --> 00:36:04,931 It's about who we bring into the room, who can actually shape decisions, and what changes occur as a result of that and the conversations that come out of co-production. 348 00:36:05,571 --> 00:36:08,891 So it's having the right people in the right place at the right time. 349 00:36:08,891 --> 00:36:11,411 And I'm sure many of you have heard that statement before. 350 00:36:11,891 --> 00:36:14,371 There's no one-size-fits-all with lived experience. 351 00:36:15,891 --> 00:36:17,811 And everybody's voice is important. 352 00:36:17,811 --> 00:36:23,571 We need to make sure that we're representing the diversity of the lived and living experience community. 353 00:36:25,651 --> 00:36:30,451 I also think one of the things that makes co-production work is being really clear about purpose. 354 00:36:31,091 --> 00:36:37,571 and making sure that there is a shared goal so that people can align and come together around that shared goal. 355 00:36:39,891 --> 00:36:43,731 This point's already been made, but look, I think it's really important to make it again. 356 00:36:44,131 --> 00:36:45,371 Timing is important. 357 00:36:45,371 --> 00:36:54,371 When you bring lived experience in at the end, all you're really doing is asking them to validate decisions that have been made, and that's not co-production. 358 00:36:55,571 --> 00:36:58,851 When lived experience is brought in from the outset, 359 00:37:00,171 --> 00:37:14,851 co-production starts to feel real and we see genuine systems change and that can only happen through bringing those voices together and that's how we shape consumer and carer outcomes in positive ways. 360 00:37:15,331 --> 00:37:21,211 So at the Collaborative Centre, our focus is on building the lived and living experience workforces across the state. 361 00:37:22,291 --> 00:37:26,931 And we do that through supporting the development of initiatives such as this one. 362 00:37:26,931 --> 00:37:30,771 And you'll see other examples of the work that we support upstairs on level one. 363 00:37:30,771 --> 00:37:37,491 So if you haven't checked out the booths, please do, because we've got a lot of work represented from our partner organisations. 364 00:37:38,851 --> 00:37:51,411 And I think if you don't build those foundations, so the partnerships, the relationships, getting the right people in the room at the right time, you can't genuinely share power and decision making. 365 00:37:52,251 --> 00:37:59,411 And I think Alec, you mentioned tokenism, and that's when lived and living experience becomes tokenistic. 366 00:38:00,451 --> 00:38:01,651 Yeah, I am interested in this. 367 00:38:01,651 --> 00:38:20,611 Part of the reason that lived and living experience gets tacked on in a tokenistic way at the end is because the gatekeepers have traditionally been the clinicians and the researchers who've operated under the old model and the old understandings of expertise, they have the knowledge 368 00:38:21,331 --> 00:38:25,811 that they're passing on to those who need and will benefit from that knowledge. 369 00:38:26,371 --> 00:38:39,250 How then do you embed this form of lived and living experience leadership into those environments where I imagine old habits and old practices can die hard? 370 00:38:40,050 --> 00:38:41,010 They do indeed. 371 00:38:43,170 --> 00:38:46,290 And I think it's something that it doesn't just happen. 372 00:38:46,290 --> 00:38:47,410 You need to work at it. 373 00:38:47,410 --> 00:38:48,770 You need to plan for it. 374 00:38:48,770 --> 00:38:50,450 It needs to be designed for. 375 00:38:50,930 --> 00:38:52,450 It needs to be resourced. 376 00:38:52,610 --> 00:38:55,410 And importantly, it needs to be protected over time. 377 00:38:57,650 --> 00:39:08,370 I think it starts with creating genuine roles and support structures for all workforces and all people with lived and living experience, and not just the opportunities to contribute. 378 00:39:08,850 --> 00:39:10,530 or, you know, just consult. 379 00:39:10,530 --> 00:39:16,610 Consulting is not co-production and it's not going to embed lived experience in the organisations or the system. 380 00:39:19,570 --> 00:39:32,290 Without the infrastructure and those relationships, again, that I spoke about, lived and living experience voices won't have the authority or the support to actually be leaders within our sector. 381 00:39:33,410 --> 00:39:36,210 They might be present, but it won't be embedded. 382 00:39:37,410 --> 00:39:43,810 I also think it's important to embed lived experience leadership across all levels. 383 00:39:44,130 --> 00:39:55,570 So from executive to middle management to frontline, you know, frontline workers who are actually doing the coalface work with consumers and carers. 384 00:39:56,050 --> 00:39:58,690 It can't be one and not everything. 385 00:39:58,690 --> 00:40:01,170 It needs to be embedded across the entire system. 386 00:40:02,250 --> 00:40:10,210 And that means building sector-wide partnerships, and I touched on that, and that is something that we are definitely very passionate about and do a lot of at the Collaborative Centre. 387 00:40:11,250 --> 00:40:20,770 Another key thing I think around embedding leadership is normalising the fact that lived and living experience expertise is here to stay. 388 00:40:21,570 --> 00:40:26,730 It is part of the ecosystem, and it needs to be heard, it needs to be recognised. 389 00:40:28,130 --> 00:40:30,850 And I think when that becomes business as usual, 390 00:40:31,410 --> 00:40:37,490 we will know that lived experience is actually genuinely embedded in our system and in your organisations. 391 00:40:38,650 --> 00:40:38,890 Great. 392 00:40:38,890 --> 00:40:39,570 Thanks, Leanne. 393 00:40:40,530 --> 00:40:42,050 Jason, if I can bring you in now. 394 00:40:42,450 --> 00:40:49,650 You've talked about research needing to challenge assumptions and sometimes create discomfort. 395 00:40:49,970 --> 00:40:54,450 What does this discomfort look like in a research setting? 396 00:40:54,450 --> 00:40:57,330 How do you balance rigour 397 00:40:57,890 --> 00:41:03,410 and challenge it with a relational values-driven approach that we've also been talking about today. 398 00:41:04,090 --> 00:41:06,530 Thanks, Paul, and thanks for the opportunity. 399 00:41:06,610 --> 00:41:13,250 And, you know, this conversation's given me plenty of things to think about where I really should have been thinking about the answers to these questions. 400 00:41:14,770 --> 00:41:20,890 So I think, you know, that some of the structural issues have been raised. 401 00:41:20,890 --> 00:41:25,450 I'm really glad they've been raised because the 402 00:41:26,250 --> 00:41:33,450 From a research perspective, you have, it's highly competitive as it's been, as we've heard about. 403 00:41:33,730 --> 00:41:37,730 You have metrics you need to be able to hit. 404 00:41:37,730 --> 00:41:41,650 You have papers you need to be able to get done. 405 00:41:41,650 --> 00:41:43,970 You need to be able to hit things in a timeline. 406 00:41:44,450 --> 00:41:48,530 You're probably on a short-term contract and you need to be able to get all those things done. 407 00:41:49,090 --> 00:41:53,170 in order to justify a funding application or something like that. 408 00:41:53,170 --> 00:42:00,370 So you're working within all these sort of structural structures as well. 409 00:42:01,890 --> 00:42:11,050 But the challenge, I suppose, is really, you know, I would doubt whether there's anyone in this room who is not passionate about this area. 410 00:42:11,890 --> 00:42:12,450 And 411 00:42:13,090 --> 00:42:24,210 And we talk about concepts like bringing your whole selves to work, and this is all this is all great, but when we have research collaborations, we have people who... 412 00:42:25,570 --> 00:42:31,890 in a research perspective, we're asking people to challenge closely held beliefs sometimes. 413 00:42:31,890 --> 00:42:36,609 We're asking people to take a perspective of another party. 414 00:42:37,009 --> 00:42:44,169 When we bring these different groups together, sometimes we're bringing our whole selves to work, we're bringing these closely held beliefs together. 415 00:42:44,609 --> 00:42:47,009 together, and then we're having them challenged. 416 00:42:47,249 --> 00:42:55,049 And unless you've got respect for perspective among a group, you know, it's going to be difficult to manage those sorts of relationships. 417 00:42:55,049 --> 00:43:12,449 So the first principle is really being able to empathise with the other people in the research group that you're talking about, you're bringing together, having respect for the perspectives of the other people in the research group you're bringing together as well, and being able to sort of 418 00:43:13,009 --> 00:43:20,649 you know, like step back from what you're probably bringing is you're real, really passionate about this particular area. 419 00:43:20,649 --> 00:43:22,849 And that, you know, that's the real challenge. 420 00:43:23,489 --> 00:43:26,209 But I think in a supportive environment, we can do that. 421 00:43:27,089 --> 00:43:31,769 There's the challenge of making the research partnership work well, which you've just touched on there. 422 00:43:31,769 --> 00:43:38,209 But then there's the question of ensuring that the best new research is translated. 423 00:43:38,849 --> 00:43:39,969 How are we going with that? 424 00:43:40,689 --> 00:43:42,649 Yeah, so there's a couple of things there. 425 00:43:42,649 --> 00:43:48,169 I mean, you've asked a nice scientific question, you know, translating the best new research. 426 00:43:48,169 --> 00:43:50,289 Well, we'll have to define what best is, okay? 427 00:43:50,289 --> 00:43:53,169 So best for whom, under what circumstances? 428 00:43:54,049 --> 00:44:03,169 We've talked, you know, a couple of the, you know, the earlier session today, two talked about, you know, when we go back to the structures, who is this working for? 429 00:44:03,529 --> 00:44:04,849 Is it working for consumers? 430 00:44:04,849 --> 00:44:07,249 Is it working for the service to organise it like this? 431 00:44:07,729 --> 00:44:11,969 Are we talking about experiences of people in services? 432 00:44:11,969 --> 00:44:15,249 Are we talking about outcomes or how do we define outcomes? 433 00:44:16,049 --> 00:44:29,409 So all of these, what I'd say is that the guide that we're talking about and Cat's great work gives us that other practical tool now for us to be able to 434 00:44:31,009 --> 00:44:42,849 you know, guidelines for how to work, how to bring that research together, how to work together to bring the best research and bring those outcomes to bear on the service system. 435 00:44:42,849 --> 00:44:59,049 So it's, you know, we try to talk about the sort of quintuple aim of performance where we are talking about outcomes, we're talking about experience, we're talking about access and equity, we're talking about a system that is able to survive. 436 00:45:00,289 --> 00:45:05,009 And we're talking about the health of the workforce as well. 437 00:45:05,089 --> 00:45:15,889 So often when we're talking about what is the best research, we're thinking about, okay, well, which of those areas of the mental health system are we trying to address? 438 00:45:16,609 --> 00:45:23,809 And yeah, what are the different perspectives that each of the different partners are bringing? 439 00:45:23,809 --> 00:45:27,649 Because they're all important and we don't all have to think the same way. 440 00:45:28,449 --> 00:45:37,009 In fact, in research partnerships, it's very important to have people who think differently and to still be able to maintain the cohesiveness of that group. 441 00:45:37,489 --> 00:45:40,369 So, yeah, sorry, can I just add one more point to that? 442 00:45:41,809 --> 00:45:43,649 Culture is also really important. 443 00:45:43,809 --> 00:45:52,849 You can have all of the right structures in place, the best of intentions, but if the culture doesn't truly value lived and living experience, it just won't stick. 444 00:45:53,409 --> 00:45:55,809 Yeah, and can I get you to respond to that, Jason? 445 00:45:55,809 --> 00:45:57,649 You're at a big university. 446 00:45:57,969 --> 00:46:01,929 Universities are large, slow-changing beasts. 447 00:46:01,929 --> 00:46:07,729 You touched on some of the issues there about insecurity of tenure, publish and perish mentality. 448 00:46:07,729 --> 00:46:11,689 Given all of those constraints and given the essentially slow 449 00:46:11,849 --> 00:46:15,369 moving, some might argue, conservative nature of large institutions? 450 00:46:15,369 --> 00:46:19,729 How do we get the change that all of us here want to see? 451 00:46:20,129 --> 00:46:31,969 Well, I mean, yeah, we're essentially in the very beginning of a transition and transitions, system transitions that are, as you said, big behemoths trying to change it. 452 00:46:32,009 --> 00:46:33,089 It's very, very difficult. 453 00:46:33,569 --> 00:46:35,769 And it's an active conversation in the 454 00:46:36,729 --> 00:46:45,168 you know, health system transitions in any area of health is extremely difficult because you are running up against those structural barriers. 455 00:46:45,168 --> 00:46:54,968 You're running up against the, you know, sometimes it's legal barriers, sometimes it's just timing barriers, remuneration, all sorts of things. 456 00:46:54,968 --> 00:46:57,008 So it's a constant effort. 457 00:46:57,008 --> 00:47:05,648 I think if we look back in 10 years, I think we will, it's much easier to sort of see the progress that we will have made, but we have to be 458 00:47:06,048 --> 00:47:06,448 dogged. 459 00:47:06,448 --> 00:47:10,288 We have to keep pushing in all the right areas. 460 00:47:10,688 --> 00:47:21,008 Kat, there's that old saying, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but we want to see, obviously, real change for people. 461 00:47:21,008 --> 00:47:23,448 What do we know about what delivers real change? 462 00:47:23,448 --> 00:47:31,248 What actually helps to ensure that this works leads to change for those people who need it, not just the good intentions? 463 00:47:32,208 --> 00:47:34,168 I had another phrase that I used 464 00:47:34,648 --> 00:47:39,728 in a meeting once with my company director, which is anarchy is an inside job and this is a corporate takeover. 465 00:47:40,448 --> 00:47:48,208 And so I don't want us to ever feel like we need to wait for anyone else to do stuff for us to take the lead in this. 466 00:47:48,688 --> 00:47:56,448 I was able to do what I was able to do because I did my school and I got good at stuff and I built up relationships and things like that. 467 00:47:56,968 --> 00:47:59,968 And I have successfully staged a corporate takeover. 468 00:48:00,888 --> 00:48:01,408 So thank you. 469 00:48:03,728 --> 00:48:04,368 Yes, indeed. 470 00:48:05,888 --> 00:48:08,288 Here's to more corporate takeovers. 471 00:48:09,328 --> 00:48:12,088 Perhaps I can put this to both Caroline and Alec. 472 00:48:12,088 --> 00:48:14,968 What gives you confidence? 473 00:48:14,968 --> 00:48:18,128 What gives you hope that things are changing? 474 00:48:19,728 --> 00:48:20,048 Alec? 475 00:48:23,328 --> 00:48:27,608 Well, I think, I mean, to be honest, I think it's that, you know, 476 00:48:28,488 --> 00:48:32,568 lived experience workforce, especially in the public mental health system, just actually just keeps showing up. 477 00:48:32,568 --> 00:48:33,808 And we actually keep... 478 00:48:34,368 --> 00:48:37,488 I mean, I'm not sure, I haven't heard... 479 00:48:38,128 --> 00:48:44,208 I haven't been happy with the pace of the reform following the Royal Commission and where things have gone and what's being shelved and everything like that. 480 00:48:44,448 --> 00:48:51,488 But I think we just have such an amazing kind of community of people who are just going to keep pushing for those things. 481 00:48:51,488 --> 00:48:53,568 And we've already come... 482 00:48:54,608 --> 00:48:55,208 so far. 483 00:48:55,208 --> 00:49:02,088 And I think like it's just, I don't know, it's just the resilience of this kind of this whole group is just really, yeah, I think the biggest kind of factor. 484 00:49:03,088 --> 00:49:03,968 Caroline, any thoughts? 485 00:49:06,608 --> 00:49:22,648 I think I pretty much just agree with what Alec has said that we've come so far in a relatively short amount of time, despite the hurdles that we've faced. 486 00:49:24,248 --> 00:49:44,928 that I think there is hope, despite the hurdles that we still face in terms of funding, in terms of recognition, that I think the lived experience movement will keep growing and be greater recognised by the wider sort of community. 487 00:49:46,528 --> 00:49:47,048 Fantastic. 488 00:49:47,048 --> 00:49:48,448 What a hopeful note to finish on. 489 00:49:48,448 --> 00:49:49,328 I think we needed that. 490 00:49:49,928 --> 00:49:50,888 been a great conversation. 491 00:49:50,888 --> 00:49:56,128 Look, thanks to our panellists, Kat, Alec, Caroline, Leanne and Jason.