Mental Health Lived Experience Peak Queensland (MHLEPQ) is the new mental health consumer representative peak organisation for Queensland, and will help advance lived-experience-led reform.
The Queensland Mental Health Commission oversaw the project to establish MHLEPQ since early 2020.
The mental health lived experience peak body is now fully operational and directly funded by Queensland Health. The MHLEPQ provides policy advice and system advocacy that represents the common interests of mental health consumers of all ages across Queensland.
MHLEPQ is governed by a board of seven directors, established in 2021, led by a Chief Executive Officer with the assistance of Policy Director and two Engagement Leads.
Visit the MHLEPQ website to find out more about how to get involved, including how to join for free as a lived experience member.
Why is this important
The Queensland Government is committed to ensuring the voices of people with a lived experience of mental ill-health are heard at all levels of the mental health system.
The establishment of the mental health consumer representative peak organisation aligned with key state and national strategic frameworks, including:
- The Queensland Government’s Shifting minds: Queensland Mental Health, Alcohol and Other Drugs Strategic Plan 2018–2023 – which identified engaging people with lived experience as equal partners in policy, planning and governance as a strategic priority for whole-of-system improvement
- Queensland Health’s Connecting Care to Recovery 2016–2021 – which had a key focus on lived experience engagement and participation in policy; and
- The Fifth National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan – which states that “consumers and carers should be at the centre of, and enabled to take an active role in shaping, the way in which services are planned, delivered and evaluated”.
Establishment
Lived experience-led
The establishment of the mental health consumer representative peak body was guided by co-design principles.
This included using the lived experience-led reform work the Commission has already championed under the Stretch2Engage Framework and the Queensland Framework for the Development of the Mental Health Lived Experience Workforce, along with other relevant state and national resources.
Project team
The Commission recruited a lived experience project team to manage all aspects of establishing the mental health consumer representative peak organisation.
Steering committee
The project to establish the new mental health consumer representative peak was governed by a project steering committee co-chaired by a person with lived experience and the Queensland Mental Health Commissioner.
The majority of the project steering committee members had lived experience. Learn more about the committee and their experiences here.
The Committee met ten times between 2020 and 2021 to make decisions about the governance and structure of the mental health consumer representative peak organisation. After each meeting, a communique was produced.
- Meeting one
- Meeting two
- Meeting three
- Meeting four
- Meeting five
- Meeting six
- Meeting seven
- Meeting eight
- Meeting nine
- Meeting ten
The Committee’s work wrapped up after the final meeting in June 2021 handing over to the newly established Board.
Evaluation
The project to establish and auspice the new mental health consumer representative peak has been evaluated by lived experience evaluator, Jo Farmer, from Jo Farmer Consulting. The findings of the evaluation will be published soon.
