Social Futures is inviting people with lived experience across regional NSW and South East QLD to join its Lived Experience Advisory Panel and help shape more accessible, respectful and effective community services.
People with lived experience are helping redesign how community services are delivered across regional NSW and South East QLD, and Social Futures is inviting applicants aged 18 and over to embrace this opportunity by joining its Lived Experience Advisory Panel.
Social Futures’ Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP) brings together people who have direct experience of having accessed support – for either housing stress, alcohol and other drugs, mental health, disability, family support needs or other challenges – to guide customer experience and service design.
Carers and family members who have experience seeking support through community service organisations on behalf of someone else are also eligible to apply.
Social Futures Chief Performance Officer Linda Hayes is based in Northern NSW and said the panel is playing a critical role in shaping how services respond to real community needs, highlighting growing recognition of lived experience as a vital form of expertise.
“It’s important that we take onboard the expertise of our customers by seeking to better understand their experiences, either with Social Futures or other community services, to learn what has and hasn’t worked for them,” said Ms Hayes.
“The Lived Experience Advisory Panel has explored a range of aspects including our use of language. How do people want to be greeted? How can we better ask sensitive questions? How can we be better listeners?”
Since the panel was first established in 2024, member insights have informed improvements to customer service, and development of Social Futures’ first Customer Experience Charter.
“The Customer Experience Charter is a commitment from Social Futures to everybody who engages with us, that we will do what we say we’re going to do. That we will do it in a timely manner, and with the outcomes, perspectives, and goals of people we support in mind.”
“The Lived Experience Advisory Panel played a key role in refining the wording and key topics contained in the Customer Experience Charter due to be launched on 1 July.
“Their insights helped identify what was most important, the commitments people want, and language that is easily understood by everybody who might be accessing our services.”
This valuable input is helping Social Futures identify barriers, and ensure services are more accessible, respectful and effective for the people who use them.
In the Hunter Valley, busy working mum Tegan Richards is studying a master’s degree in social work. Ms Richards shares her experience as an active sitting member of Social Futures’ Lived Experience Advisory Panel.
“Having understanding, empathy and humility around other people’s lived experience is really good to see and it will be exciting to see more changes implemented to help others in the future.
“I’ve lived through so much of what others are also experiencing, and it’s nice to be someone that’s using their experience to give a voice to the voiceless and help make services easier to access. It can be so daunting and intimidating accessing services for the first time.
“We’re all humans at the end of the day and we all deserve equal opportunity to be able to do everything.”
The panel is currently chaired by Dr Gregory P. Smith OAM, an internationally recognised advocate who has drawn on his own experience of homelessness, alcohol and other drugs, and domestic violence, to drive systemic change and amplify lived experience voices.
Dr Smith led the panel’s establishment and early work, “It has been a privilege to help establish the Lived Experience Advisory Panel and see its impact begin to take shape. There is a real opportunity for new leadership to build on this foundation and continue embedding lived experience at the heart of service design.”
Social Futures is now seeking a new Chair to guide the next phase of the panel’s development, alongside recruiting additional members.
Ms Hayes said, “We are extraordinarily fortunate to have had Dr Smith be the inaugural Chair of the panel. He brings a large cross-section of lived expertise and experience, as well as an academic approach to our goals, governance and the LEAP framework.
The advisory panel meets online five times each year, with members joining from across regional Australia.
Applications for Lived Experience Advisory Panel positions, including the Chair role, are now open. To learn more about the available options and what’s involved, including time commitment and remuneration, visit https://socialfutures.org.au/leap/
