Finding meaning in experience

For Robyn, this work is the culmination of a lifelong commitment to fairness, humanity and understanding. Her journey began in community — she once trained in theology, one of the first women in Australia to study for priesthood. Though her path eventually took her elsewhere, that early grounding shaped the way she sees the world: through relationships, compassion and justice.
 

“I’ve always had a strong sense of what’s right,” she says. “That came from my parents and from my work with people early in life. It gave me a sense of fairness and social justice that’s stayed with me ever since.”
 

In her forties, a period of mental distress profoundly shifted Robyn’s life. She describes years of recovery as a long and often lonely process — until she met a peer support worker named Anthony Stratford, whose belief in her changed everything.
 

“Anthony showed me a new horizon,” Robyn recalls. “He helped me find that tiny flicker of hope again — and over time it became a flaming lighthouse.”
 

That experience, she says, crystallised her belief that healing happens not through control or coercion, but through human connection.
 

“People heal in relationships they can trust,” she says. “Ones built on respect and belief, not on being told what’s best for them.”

 

Shared leadership, shared learning

When the opportunity arose to help establish the Collaborative Centre’s lived and living experience governance group, Robyn agreed — but only on one condition: Sam had to co-chair alongside her.
 

“I said I’d take it on only if I could do it with Sam,” she says. “We make decisions together — and not just as co-chairs. The LLEG works collectively; leadership and direction come from the group as a whole. Our role is simply to guide the process and make sure every voice is heard.”
 

Sam joined as one of the committee’s founding members, drawn to the promise of something genuinely new: lived and living experience not just as an advisory voice but as a core part of governance.
 

“It was the first priority of the Board,” he explains, “to have lived and living experience walk alongside the Board in real time. Not a transactional consultancy, but a genuine partnership.”
 

When Robyn called to ask if he’d co-chair, he didn’t hesitate.
 

“I saw an opportunity to help evolve genuine lived and living experience governance,” Sam says. “I’ve worked in strategic design and delivery for many years, and I wanted to bring that experience into something relational and translational.”
 

Sam brings a complementary strength to the co-chair role — grounding the group’s passion in the language of policy, governance and business.
 

“Sam’s measured and calm,” Robyn says with affection. “I’m a bit of an iconoclast — it’s a good balance.”
 

Sam smiles. “It works because we both value the same thing — the integrity of relationships. That’s where the real work happens.”

 

Why this work matters

For both co-chairs, the personal and professional are inseparable.
 

Sam speaks openly about his experience as a carer.
 

“Navigating the system from outside is extremely challenging,” he says. “I am deeply committed to using both my professional and lived experience to improve the experience of care for my loved one and myself. Lived and living experience leadership allows me to extend that commitment to those in the community, and also to those who provide that care.
 

For Robyn, the motivation lies in ensuring others never face the same barriers she did.
 

“I came into the mental health sector and realised how unfair it was for people,” she says. “How restrictive it could be, how easily people’s rights and autonomy were taken away. That drove me to want to change it.”
 

Her focus now is human rights and reform — the slow, steady kind that takes patience and persistence.
 

“The best advice I ever got was to joyfully persevere,” Robyn says. “Reform takes courage and time, but if you can hold onto hope, you can keep going.”

 

Building a culture of respect

From its earliest days, the LLEG has worked intentionally to create safety and trust. One of its first acts was developing a “Ways of Working” document to set shared expectations for inclusion and care.
 

“Every meeting is a moment of joy,” Sam says. “You can walk in after a long week and always leave feeling inspired. The diversity of experiences around the table gives you a new reflection, understanding, or insight – I'm very thankful for that..”
 

For Robyn, that culture of mutual respect is the foundation for genuine reform.
 

“Reform is relational,” she says. “It happens when people meet as equals — not when one group speaks for another.”

 

What meaningful reform looks like

When asked what change they most want to see, both co-chairs return to the same idea: humanity.
 

“A person’s experience of care should be as important as the outcome,” Sam says. “Lived experience should inform all aspects of the system — from access and navigation to service design to collaborative care planning. It needs genuine, non-tokenistic pathways for participation and shared decision-making.”
 

Robyn agrees.

“I want to see fewer restrictive and coercive practices,” she says. “People shouldn’t lose their autonomy simply because they’re in distress. Human distress is human — it doesn’t need to be pathologised, it needs to be understood.”

 

Looking ahead

The next year marks a new phase for the committee as it transitions into a formal sub-committee of the Board — a sign of how far lived and living experience leadership has come.
 

“This evolution strengthens involvement at a strategic level,” Sam says. “And I’m excited to see the lived experience sector coming together across research, workforce and service delivery. There’s incredible expertise out there — it deserves to be celebrated.”
 

Robyn nods to the future with characteristic humility.
 

“I think reform will go on beyond my lifetime,” she says. “But I’m happy to be part of the chain — there was a generation before me, and there will be one after me. The cat’s out of the bag now. There’s a tsunami of people driving this change, and there’s no stopping it.”
 

She pauses, then smiles.
 

“Relationships are everything,” she says softly. “That’s how we grow, how we change, how we heal. That’s as true for systems as it is for people.”