Laying the foundations for change – One year of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission
It has been one year since the establishment of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission (MHWC) and we’d like to take this occasion to share progress on our key work, our reflections and some upcoming priorities.
Our establishment year has been a process of listening, learning and laying the foundations for change.
We have been busy building capacity and recruiting experts in lived experience, data analysis, investigations, legal and people and culture. We’ve been engaging with stakeholders including people with a lived and living experience to ensure we’re best placed to perform our legislative functions and support genuine system reform well into the future.
Our Commissioners, CEO and Lived Experience team have been busy visiting the local hubs and seeing first-hand the value they add to their community. We’ve also been engaging with as many stakeholder perspectives as possible – attending conferences with TheMHS, VMIAC, Tandem, Suicide Prevention Australia, Wellways, Satellite Foundation, Safer Care Victoria, Office of the Chief Psychiatrist, the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine, Lifeline, Aboriginal Advancement League, MIND, Monash Health, Equally Well, Thomas Embling Hospital, Mental Health Victoria, interstate commission bodies and many more.
Our Strategic Direction that we released last October – including our commitment to being grounded by lived experience in everything we do – has underpinned how we’ve approached the establishment phase of the new Commission.
Work on our foundational strategies is well-advanced and on track. In the coming weeks and months, we look forward to sharing:
- A comprehensive and co-designed Lived Experience Plan, encompassing significant feedback from stakeholders, services, consumers, carers, families and supporters of people with a lived or living experience,
- The Principles Project – a practical ‘how to’ guide for services to implement the 13 mental health and wellbeing principles in the new legislation
- Our Monitoring and Reporting Plan
- Our Approach to Complaints handling and Compliance Monitoring
- Our 2025 Annual Plan
- A 3-year Strategic Plan,
- Our inaugural Annual Report, and
- An independent MHWC ‘Report on the Use of Restrictive Interventions in Designated Mental Health Facilities’.
In July, we published our policy for ‘Exploring issues through inquiries and systemic reviews’, which includes a place on our website where the public can share their concerns about the mental health and wellbeing system (Vic) with us.
Recently we have also published our Stakeholder Engagement Framework. We recognise that good stakeholder and community engagement is vital to achieving our goals and our framework demonstrates our commitment to working with our stakeholders and explains to our stakeholders how we will work with them.
The Commission has also contributed to establishing of, and becoming a signatory to the Helio Declaration – Peer and Lived Experience Leadership,(opens in a new window) which underlines the importance of using lived experience as a key element in the journey towards healing and wellbeing. The Declaration was drafted and accepted by 30 peer expert participants from 12 nations.
In the leadup to the introduction of the mandatory reporting of all restrictive interventions at designated mental health services, we renewed our call for the Victorian Government to consider expanding the oversight and safeguards legislation to all Victorians, which you can find more information about here.
We continue to acknowledge stakeholder’s uncertainty regarding the pace of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. We are urging the government to be transparent and accountable with its revised plans for reform pace and how it will address workforce shortages as a matter of priority. We are working hard to get the answers and direction that stakeholders, consumers and carers need.
Over the past year, the new MHWC has continued the work of the former Mental Health Complaints Commissioner and handled thousands of complaints, made recommendations for service improvements and followed up to ensure these improvements have been made. Details of our compliance activity – including investigations and enforceable undertakings – will be released in the inaugural MHWC Annual Report later this year.
We would like to thank our valued stakeholders, mental health services and lived experience experts for your engagement and valuable feedback throughout the MHWC planning and establishment year.
We have an exciting few months ahead of us we look forward to hosting the first of many MHWC Routable Events to take a deep dive into systemic issues holding back reform in the mental health and wellbeing sector.
By working together we can drive change and ensure that all Victorian consumers, carers, families and supporters have access to effective treatment, care and support.
Key reflections and takeaways:
Lived Experience Consumer Commissioner Maggie Toko:
“Collectively we have had to reach beyond our comfort zone in some matters while holding strong to the developing values and principles of the Commission. I have no doubt that we will enrich the reform process for the betterment of consumers and carers.
I like to see the Commission as a collective group of committed participants in improving the lives of the voiceless.”
Lived Experience Carer Commissioner Jacqueline Gibson:
“The foundation of my work lies not in abstract policy or distant directives but in the voices and lived experiences of families, carers, and supporters - those who often find themselves unheard, lost in the vast machinery of Victoria’s public mental health system.
It is their stories and their quiet struggles, that inform every focus, every direction, every priority that guides the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission.”
Commissioner Annabel Brebner:
“We have established a fantastic team of people to help us contribute to transforming the mental health and wellbeing system.
Stakeholders want to know about the performance, quality and safety of the mental health and wellbeing system - with clear data that they can trust and easily understand. Similarly, they want to know how far we have progressed towards achieving the vision of the Royal Commission through implementing the recommendations.
We are keeping our hearts and minds on our purpose and laying solid foundations to perform our role effectively.”
Chair Commissioner Treasure Jennings:
“Trust is hard fought and will never be handed to us. People have to see themselves in our work.
We are taking the time to get things right by undertaking rigorous analysis and performing our due diligence in establishing the new Commission. We can do very meaningful work but only if this is grounded by the experience and knowledge of people with a lived and living experience.”
MHWC Lived Experience Team:
“The Commission is fully embracing the incorporation lived experience perspectives into its work. What has been special about this establishment year has been the support and value that has been demonstrated at every level of the organisation.
The Commission has fully embraced the more specialised values built by the consumer and carer movements to ensure that as an organisation we can genuinely and meaningfully reflect what people who have experienced the mental health system want.
This has meant asking real questions about how to acknowledge power and decision making, and in having the challenging conversations needed to ensure we deliver our functions.
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