In this excerpt from the 2026 Stratford Lecture, co guest speakers Rana Te Huia and Magdel Hammond reflect on their experiences of services with genuine lived experience governance.
A full lived experience governance model means that people with lived experience hold most or all governance power, including responsibility for strategy, risk, organisational direction, and protecting the integrity of the lived experience vision.
Real change requires shifting who defines purpose and direction, not just who delivers services. Governance is where power sits. When people with lived experience are present at board and executive levels, they can question and reshape the system itself. Without that, authority remains intact.
Lived experience governance offers a different approach. It shifts power to those most affected. It moves from hierarchy and deficit-based thinking toward relational, community-led practice. It recognises lived experience as legitimate leadership, not advisory, not symbolic, but decisive.
We have seen what happens when lived experience governance works. Not in theory - in reality. We’ve lived it.
We have seen community built services that are brave, grounded, relational. We’ve seen people walk into spaces shaped by lived experience and, for the first time, feel safe. Feel understood. Feel human again.
We’ve seen leaders rise - quietly at first, then boldly - because the structure around them protected their integrity instead of stripping it away. We’ve seen innovation flourish because those closest to the pain were trusted to shape the solutions.
And these successes aren’t small. They are proof that when lived experience leads - truly leads - the system becomes better: more compassionate, more accountable, more human, more effective.
This is the opportunity in front of us: a mental health sector that doesn’t just “include” lived experience but is reshaped by it. A sector grounded in integrity, community, and courage. A sector where power doesn’t sit above people, but with them.
The challenge is real. But so is the possibility. We know this because we have already seen what lived experience governance can create - and because we carry that future with us, every single day.