Care Experience

Placing the lived experience of consumers at the heart of care service design and delivery.

Feedback from consumers shows that despite increased emphasis on co-design, they are still having to ‘fit in’ with how sectors work and what they offer.

Led by Professors Lisa Brophy and Sarah MacLean, our researchers are exploring how the lived experience of Australian consumers can improve the current design and delivery of services to ensure both culturally appropriate and empowering models of care are achieved.

Our priorities over the next year are to:

  • identify how adults’ and children’s experiences of care can be improved,
  • increase the amount and quality of research that engages people with lived experiences of care, and
  • ensure translation of lived experience perspectives into policy and process.

Our projects include

Led by Professor Leesa Hooker, this study is looking at the unique challenges that rural and LGBTQI+ survivors of sexual violence face due to factors such as access to services, location, community awareness and discrimination. The project aims to use the voices of women with lived experience to develop, test and revise service models supporting survivors.

CERI core members, Associate Professors Anne-Marie Laslett, Professors Leesa Hooker and Sarah MacLean, and Dr Heng Jiang are studying the risk and protective factors for harm experienced by children in multiple systems. The study will identify what service responses are better at supporting positive outcomes for children.

Core member, Emeritus Professor Margarita Frederico is working with the Irish Child and Family Agency, Tusla, to develop trauma informed practice for service providers. The examination of strategies will allow practitioners to respond more effectively to the needs of children and their families.

This first of its kind study, led by Professor Lisa Brophy and Associate Professor Chris Maylea, will look at the variations of use of the controversial Community Treatment Orders within and between jurisdictions. The project will seek to understand the drivers in the use of these legal orders to enforce psychiatric treatment in the community without consent.

Learn more about FACTORS

Professor Lisa Brophy and her team are identifying the unique needs of Forensicare’s peer workforce to develop strategies supportive of clients and their families as they navigate the forensic mental health care setting. The project aims to enhance recovery, reduce stigma and increase advocacy opportunities for families, carers and supporters.

Professor Lisa Brophy and Associate Professor Chris Maylea are working with Victoria Legal Aid, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and the Mental Health Legal Centre to evaluate the new Mental Health Legal Rights Service (MHLRS) and the existing Independent Mental Health Advocacy Service (IMHA). Both programs service people experiencing involuntary mental health treatment in Victoria with a focus on upholding the rights and perspectives of consumers. Work is underway to establish a Co-design Group consisting of people with a lived experience of involuntary mental health treatment to provide oversight, guidance and input into the design and delivery of evaluation.

Latest updates

Watch our research presentations and seminars:

  • Measuring recovery alcohol and other drug use
  • FACTORS project: Is there a future for Community Treatment Orders? An expert panel critically examine recent developments in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, focusing on the limitations and challenges of Community Treatment Orders.
  • Recovery Colleges seminar:  Recovery colleges are innovative models of care delivery that empower participants to become experts in their own recovery. At a symposium [PDF 447.6 KB] hosted by CERI and the Victorian Collaborative Centre Mental of Health and Wellbeing, experts-by-training and experts-by-experience explained how the open-format model uses co-design and education principles to support recovery journeys. CERI was proud to host speakers from Mind Recovery, Rainbow Recovery, Discovery Colleges, Mayo Colleges Ireland, Alfred Mental and Addiction Health, King’s College London, and La Trobe University for a discussion on how all sectors of the care economy can benefit from and contribute to better care delivery in Australia.
  • First Nations child's relationality: and what this means for child and family practice
    The La Trobe University Discipline of Social Work and Social Policy and the Care Economy Research Institute (CERI) invited Dr Mishel McMahon to discuss her research on First Nations child’s relationality and what this means for child and family practice, particularly within social work.

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