Stories of Lived Experience launch
Our evaluation report on Weave Youth & Community Services was launched at a community celebration in Waterloo on Tuesday 30 August 2016. The evaluation was part of a larger Stories of Lived Experience project, which also included photographic portraits and a short documentary to capture the faces and stories of Weave’s clients and community.
The evaluation was designed to understand the features of Weave’s support models that make a difference to clients, focusing intergenerational connections and continuity of care, and to use clients’ expert knowledge of their life experiences to contribute to the mental health sector’s development and good practice. The report celebrates the stories of Weave’s clients and community, and makes recommendations that Weave will use to inform their future directions. It also identifies lessons for the wider community sector, especially for services working with Aboriginal people and communities.
The report draws on interviews with over 50 Weave clients, as well as consultations with Weave staff and analysis of service data. To support a culturally sensitive approach that builds capacity in the local community, we worked with Weave and three local Aboriginal organisations—Tribal Warrior Association, South Sydney Aboriginal Corporation Resources Centre, and the Aboriginal Medical Service in Redfern—to deliver the project under ethics approval from the Aboriginal Health & Medical Research Council.
ARTD undertook this project as part of our corporate social responsibility to strengthen the non-government sector. The project was also supported by a grant that Weave received from Inner West Partners in Recovery.
