Abstract for: Co-creating systemic solutions to mental health care with people with lived experience of mental ill-health and recovery

The recent Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System (RCVMHS) produced 65 recommendations including calls for systems-level innovations in mental healthcare to address issues such as fragmentation and lack of integration. This requires placing people with lived experience at the centre of designing and developing the mental health system. To this end, a two-year research program is exploring systems-based approaches to co-create systemic solutions to improve outcomes for acute-care mental health consumers in the Barwon-Southwest Victoria Region. This research will use the Systems-Thinking-in-Community-Knowledge-Exchange (STICK-E) platform based on group model building to bring together clinicians, researchers, and those with lived-experience to identify testable, contextually relevant, and sustainable interventions to improve mental health outcomes in the region, initially focussed on acute-inpatient care. This research seeks to assess the acceptability of group model building for people with lived experience and co-create the process for stakeholder engagement through which a series of interventions will be developed. A selection of the co-designed interventions will be tested using the opportunities provided by the RCVMHS-driven reform program. This research will facilitate a world-leading Listening and Learning Healthcare System (LLHS) for mental health services, driving continuous improvement in service delivery and improved consumer outcomes in the region.