If lived experience workers deliver services but are not equal all the way up to - and including - governance, power does not truly shift.
That was the message from the co-presenters of the 2026 Stratford Lecture at The Edge, Federation Square, Melbourne, last week. The full lecture is now available to watch on Youtube.
“An organisation may look progressive by employing peer workers and using recovery language, but key decisions about funding, priorities, risk, and acceptable practice still sit with traditional leadership. The system changes its appearance, not its foundation,” co-presenters Rana Te Huia and Magdel Hammond argued.
The third annual Stratford Lecture at The Edge, Federation Square, attracted an enthusiastic audience of nearly 150 people from the lived experience community, the mental health sector and beyond.
The lecture is presented by Mind Australia as an opportunity to foster thought leadership in lived experience and support a lived experience led transformation of mental health support in Australia.
Rana Te Huia was recently appointed the Service Establishment Manager of Victoria’s first Lived Experience Residential Service, which Mind is opening in the Geelong area later this year. She was previously the General Manager of Balance Aotearoa, an entirely peer-governed and peer-run organisation established in the mid-1990s.
Magdel Hammond is currently the Lived Experience Strategy and Workforce Manager of Wellways. Previously she developed peer led services in Aotearoa and worked in lived experience governance.
The co-presenters both reflected on their own histories of being “stuck in an illness paradigm” when seeking help within the context of their own lived experience.
Both described finding their purpose; using their lived experience to build and champion peer led approaches inside mental health systems that previously had no, or limited exploration of, alternative options.
“We bring all of this with us - the journey, the mistakes, the breakthroughs, the hurt, moral injury and the deep belief that lived experience leadership is not a niche or a “nice to have,” but a transformative force,” they said.
“Our commitment (in the lecture) is to speak honestly about what it takes to build and sustain Lived Experience leadership and governance, to challenge assumptions that hold us back, and to offer practical, hopeful pathways forward for organisations who want more than tokenism – those who want true lived experience leadership.”
Guest speaker, Victorian Minister for Mental Health Ingrid Stitt said the Stratford Lecture -and Scholarship – support “new ideas, new voices, new ways of reimagining mental health care through lived experience wisdom.”
Introducing the 2026 Stratford Lecture, Mind Executive Director Lived Experience Katie Larsen said its theme of ‘Challenge, Action, Change’ was an opportunity to do a deep dive into the resistances and barriers to achieving a lived experience led mental health system.
“The theme… recognises that no change comes without discomfort, without grappling with uncertainty – questioning the ways we have always done things.”
The ensuing discussion, included plenty of lively audience participation and feedback via Slido.
The Lecture also featured the announcement by Mind CEO Gill Callister of the 2026 Stratford Scholarship, which was awarded to proud Barkindji songwoman Nancy Bates.
Announcing the Scholarship, Ms Callister said Mind will continue to drive systemic change to put lived experience in the driving seat of the mental health system - through influence and advocacy, as well as through Mind’s own work expanding its lived experience leadership, workforce and workforce expertise.
Read more about the recipient of the 2026 Stratford Scholarship here.