Back to top

Lived Experience Peak

Mental Health Lived Experience Peak Queensland (MHLEPQ) is new mental health consumer representative peak organisation for Queensland, aiming to help advance lived-experience-led reform.

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.

Why is this important

The voice of lived and living experience is critical to driving and implementing system reform through governance, decision-making, design and implementation across the mental health system.

Queensland had been without a lived experience mental health peak body for several years, until in early 2020, the Queensland Government provided funding to establish a new mental health consumer representative peak to represent Queenslanders who use public mental health services.

What we did

The Queensland Mental Health Commission (the Commission) oversaw the project to establish the MHLEPQ from 2020 under an auspicing arrangement that ended in December 2022. The MHLEPQ became fully operational and directly funded by Queensland Health from 1 January 2023.

The role of the new MHLEPQ is to:

  • provide policy advice and system advocacy representing the common interests of mental health consumers of all ages and backgrounds across Queensland

  • bring emerging issues to government for consideration

  • empower — through training, mentoring and support — individual consumer representatives to provide personal perspectives and experiences on public mental health policy and planning issues.

Visit the MHLEPQ website to find out more about how to get involved, including how to join for free as a lived experience member.

Project information

The establishment of the MHLEPQ was guided by co-design principles. This included:

Project steering committee meetings

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.

The Committee’s work was wrapped up after the final meeting in June 2021.

Evaluation

The project to establish and auspice the new mental health consumer representative peak was evaluated by lived experience evaluator, Jo Farmer, from Jo Farmer Consulting.

The findings of the evaluation are available below.

How does this support reform?

The establishment of the mental health consumer representative peak organisation aligns with key state and national strategic frameworks, including: