To start the day we heard from Ellie Hodges, Chief Executive of the Lived Experience Leadership and Advocacy Network (LELAN), our previous Discovery Partner and current Strategic Partner. Ellie shared about LELAN’s journey of partnership with the Foundation and of their growth as an organisation to becoming a recognised, state-funded peak body for lived experience leadership for South Australia. The group engaged in discussions about what lived experience leadership means within the context of their work and how best to support its growth. Ellie’s words of advice to our new partners,

Next up each of our partners shared about their Discovery work…

• MCCSA, through the Multicultural Men’s Group, is partnering with four multicultural community groups in South Australia to support them in exploring what mental health and wellbeing means in their context and to identify their own priorities, challenges, opportunities, and strengths that can be built on or leveraged to create opportunities for connection and support. MCCSA has just engaged their first peer connectors to lead this exciting piece of work within their respective communities. 

• Seeds of Affinity and the University of South Australia are developing a Messenger chatbot to support women to navigate release from prison in compassionate and supportive ways. They are currently in the process of setting up an advisory group of women with lived-prison-experience to shepherd the project. ‘Lindabot’ will be workshopped and prototyped in collaboration with women who have been or are currently experiencing incarceration and will be operated and maintained by Seeds of Affinity.

• The Village Foundation and the University of South Australia will continue their journey of addressing isolation and improving the wellbeing of parents through preventative supports that centre around connection. They are looking to co-design, with community across four council areas, a mentoring approach. Village Mentoring would be offered alongside Village Life - access to relevant support and information via online and facilitated learning, and Village Connect - connection through an App for parents and a self-monitoring mood tool, as a third avenue of support. 

• The Equality Project is looking to leverage existing networks and create new points of connection for LGBTQIA+ people in both metropolitan and regional South Australia. They are starting off by mapping existing groups and networks and building and deepening relationships across the state. During a series of cuppas in different towns and communities they’ll begin to explore and test ways to increase connection, resourcing, and support networks, building on local peer leader networks & systems as well as connecting up networks for broader learning and influence.

Conversations emerged around the nuanced use of language across sectors, communities, and contexts, despite this the theme of connection resounded as integral to wellbeing. When discussing their work and approaches a key agreement emerged from the group - it’s not really co-design if you know what it looks like from the start.

We are so excited to continue bringing you updates about the work of our Discovery Grant partners, but in the meantime we'll leave you with some of their hopes for the opportunity Discovery may provide.