The Lived Experience Network (LEN) plays an important role in advising how the Child and Family Support System (CFSS) can better support families to keep their children safe and well at home.
LEN is made up of 15 system advisors of diverse ages, cultures and backgrounds who have an experience of significant family stress and the need for support services to keep their children and families safe and well. Working alongside LEN are Alumni members who have completed their LEN term and are keen to remain connected to LEN and participate in activities that are of interest to them.
LEN’s key achievements
- LEN helped create the ASK website, providing families experiencing tough times (and anyone with a concern about a child's safety and wellbeing) with access to information and support.
- Aboriginal LEN members worked with an Aboriginal consultant to inform the design of the Trauma Responsive System Framework and training and contributed to a series of videos for practitioners on how to be trauma responsive.
- LEN advisors helped shape the language and content of practice guides for the Child and Family Support System, including guides on assertive engagement, safe home visiting and risk and safety planning.
- Aboriginal LEN members helped inform the design and content of the Yaitya Mingkamingka Purrutiapinthi training package, and featured in training videos on the strengths of culture and trauma-responsive practice.
- LEN worked with the South Australian Royal Commission into Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence to develop an online, anonymous consultation tool, enabling families to share their experience of domestic, family and sexual violence.
LEN Impact Report
The CFSS Lived Experience Network Impact Report highlights the powerful role that lived experience play in shaping a more responsive and effective Child and Family Support System in South Australia. This report will be developed annually.
CFSS Lived Experience Network (LEN) Impact Report - Inaugural (PDF 3.0 MB)
CFSS Lived Experience Network (LEN) Impact Report - Inaugural - Plain Text (DOCX 121.8 KB)
How LEN contribute to the Child and Family Support System
LEN meets fortnightly to use their lived experience to provide practical advice on how the system can better support children and families.
LEN provides advice by:
- contributing to the design of policy and practice
- helping with the design of marketing and communications to reach families going through tough times
- being part of Communities of Practice forums and speaking on discussion panels
- talking with service and training providers about how practitioners can best work with families
- sharing the views of their community (for example, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, culturally and linguistically diverse, LGBTQIA+, and families with additional needs).
How LEN was established
LEN was established in 2020 as a direct outcome of the co-design of the CFSS. The establishment of LEN recognises the voices of families with lived experience must be an important part of how we continue to develop and shape CFSS. The catch cry of system advisors ‘nothing about us without us’ reflects their commitment to strengthening the system to support others like them.
Learn more about the establishment of LEN from the Emerging Minds Case Study.
Join LEN and have your voice heard
Lived experience for the LEN group is defined as experience of:
- Significant family stresses that make it harder for children and families to feel safe, secure and valued
- Supporting family, community members or friends who have been living with family stresses
- Seeking and/or receiving help from child and family support services or helping others to do so
- Diverse cultural knowledge about what services need to be and do to be truly helpful.
Find out more about becoming a system advisor (PDF 1.2 MB).
Register your interest (DOCX 151.9 KB).
Contact the Lived Experience Network (LEN)
Email us at DHSLivedExperienceNetwork@sa.gov.au
If your team is interested in working with LEN, please refer to the Practice Guide for staff seeking advice and engagement with LEN (PDF 612.8 KB).