2023 Annual Symposium

The annual symposium of the ‘Right care, first time, where you live’ Program was held at the end of last year. Our Program is working with eight regions in Australia to help develop a much greater and more effective youth mental health system within their region. At the event we bring together people from across the country who are involved in the Program to share their experiences of implementing the Program in their region.  

Leadership was one of the key themes of last year’s event. What came to light as we listened to the presentations from the Brisbane South PHN, the Western Sydney PHN and the young people with lived experience was that our Program is modelling a new kind of leadership - one that is collaborative, consultative and collective. 

Victoria Thom of the BHP Foundation says:

“Often when we think about leadership, we default to a more traditional hierarchical command and control model of leadership. And I think what comes through in this project is a very, very different type of leadership that's needed to disrupt a system, and that is collective leadership.

Leadership can come and is coming from everywhere. It's coming from the young people. It’s coming from the PHNs who are convening the stakeholders in their system. It's coming from the stakeholders themselves.

And it's also, I think, being signalled by the Brain and Mind Centre and the Program  team in terms of a different way of leading. So the way that they show up, the way that they are engaging participatory, collaborative, consultative  is really signalling that this different way of working is critical. If we're going to make some significant change.

And I think we've had a lot of that. The technology, the data, the modelling itself, but that needs to be married up with a different type of leadership. If this is really going to create sustainable change”.

Julie Sturgess, Country to Coast PHN CEO says: “It's been exciting. I come to these workshops and have for a few years now, and every single time I'm just I walk away buoyed by the enthusiasm and the excitement that people feel at thinking that there might be a tool at their disposal to actually help them make change.”

Chloe Gosling, a youth lived experience advocate in Brisbane South and member of the National Youth Lived Experience Reference Group says: I think the leadership that we're showing here kind of takes more of a not a one person ruling at all. It's more leadership in terms of people who have the capacity to advocate, who have the capacity to listen. Taking it on board from every other leader that was at the table and everyone working together to keep pushing forward and lead the people who may be unable to speak up. Rather than just having one person dictating the conversation, which is really lovely.”

We hope that our collective and collaborative leadership approach continues to guide our Program’s process and helps to support regions to improve the youth mental health system within their region.

 Watch now: https://youtu.be/L6AeLiCXiBY