STATEMENTS
MHLEPQ Position Statement:
Office of Chief Lived Experience Officer (Mental Health) in Queensland
The Mental Health Lived Experience Peak Queensland (MHLEPQ) calls for the funding, establishment, and appointment of a Chief Lived Experience Officer, Mental Health (Identified) role to be situated at the executive level of Queensland Health. The office will be alongside those of the Chief Medical Officer, Chief Psychiatrist, Chief Allied Health Officer, Chief Nurse, and Chief First Nations Officer.
MHLEPQ first called for the appointment of a Chief Peer Officer (Mental Health) in our submission to the Queensland Parliamentary Mental Health Select Committee Inquiry in February 2022 . The time has come to turn this call into action.
The Chief Lived Experience Officer will assume the responsibility to advise the Queensland Government through the Minister for Mental Health on matters relating to:
- Informing, promoting, and monitoring co-production and co-design processes across the Queensland Mental Health system (public and private) at all levels from service to systems design and implementation.
- Promoting, monitoring, and overseeing best practice in peer work across the Queensland Mental Health system including sustainable career paths, appropriate professional supervision and development, training standards and communities of practice.
- Diverse, equitable and inclusive representation of people with lived experience at all levels of the mental health systems.
- Lived experience research and acknowledgment of lived experience in research.
The MHLEPQ notes the central role of lived experience in the Queensland Government Mental Health Strategy Shifting Minds , in the Better Care Together plan for the Queensland state-funded mental health system and in the recommendations of the Queensland Parliament’s Mental Health Select Committee Report.
A Chief Lived Experience Officer will lead to more effective sector-wide governance, implementation, and accountability, ensuring the voices of people with lived and living experience of services are heard across all state-funded mental health and alcohol and other drug services in Queensland. This also supports the Queensland Government to deliver on its commitment to reduce system fragmentation through more integrated government-funded services, address gaps in the mental health system, and ensure appropriate co-design with people with lived experience.
A Chief Lived Experience Officer will also play a central role in providing institutional support for the ongoing development of the lived experience (peer) workforce in Queensland, and the promotion and embedding of the Queensland Framework for Lived Experience Workforce Development and National Lived Experience (Peer) Workforce Development Guidelines .
The creation of a Chief Lived Experience Officer role will be a clear signal that the Queensland Government is serious about its commitment to co-designing mental health reform in partnership with the voices of lived experience.