The Co-Design Initiative is a voluntary project led by consumers and carers and auspiced by Civil Society Australia. It is a response to planned review and reforms for the mental health system, led by the creation of Primary Health Networks.

Our goal… is to ensure that consumers and carers are at the centre in mental health system design, development and delivery.

The Co-design Initiative organised two co-design events, one in Sydney and one in Melbourne. Referred to as ‘conferences’ and as ‘symposia’ these were actually interactive workshops that enabled a large number of people to share their knowledge, experience and ideas about co-design.

The core question considered at these events was: how can we make sure that consumers and carers are integral to and leading the reform of the mental health system in each PHN?

Two interactive workshops explored the questions:

Workshop 1: Common Ground – what are the essential elements of authentic codesign?

Workshop 2: Co-creation – what could a consumer and carer ‘hub’ look like in the context of a PHN? More than two hundred people participated in the events.

The written and verbal feedback from the events has formed the basis of the Co-design: Shared perspectives on authentic co-design report.

Codesign shared perspectives report