This project is now completed.

Craig Stanley Jones, based at CRU and employed by DSQ, coordinated this project. Achievements of note in this project were:

The development and publishing of the booklet ‘Guiding Principles for Consumer Participation’. The content of this booklet is based on contributions from people with a mental illness or psychiatric disability, presentations at earlier Project Forums, and research;

The Consumer Participation Forum, attended by over 70 people. The Keynote speaker was Simon Champ, Director of SANE Australia, and the presentations by six consumers and service workers were particularly inspiring. There was a sense that the event raised the profile and the energy for a consumer movement within the DSQ context.

An Occasional paper: ‘What are the five top skills and qualities in a support worker that assists people to participate within their service context and life more broadly?’

In completing the two-year pilot of this project, CRU provided DSQ with a submission recommending the continuation of the project in order to strengthen the capacity of individuals to have a greater say over their support arrangements and for services to implement strategies which foster empowerment, autonomy and a power-sharing relationship. It was recommended that the key activities be:

• To invest in individuals and services utilising educational strategies;
• To provide written information, relevant to furthering the overall aim of the Unit;
• To provide Peer Support, in order to foster a consumer voice in Queensland; and
• To foster the development of self-advocacy in individuals.

This project seeks to work alongside people who had lived in psychiatric institutions and who are supported through Project 300 funding to live in ordinary communities. The project is particularly directed at enabling people to have an authentic role in guiding and shaping their support arrangements.

Thus, the project will:

• Identify those things that facilitate and those that limit the capacity of individuals and services to have greater control and decision making
• Clarify the nature of ‘right relationship’ between the person and the support agency.
• Provide examples of arrangements where individuals have conditional delegated authority over a range of matters.
• Foster ways and means that increase the capacity of both the clients and services to reflect on their current relationship and support arrangements and work towards a better mutually agreed arrangement.
• Identify the principles and practices that support people with significant psychiatric disabilities to have as much control over their lives and support arrangements as possible

Monitoring of the project is being done by a Steering Group of people representing the Queensland Alliance, DSQ, CRU and Project 300. A key safeguard for the integrity of the project is the Project Group, made up of people who receive support through Project 300, others who have received mental health services and CRU. This project is funded by DSQ.