Our North Star: A Collective Good Life Vision
For too long, the rights of people with psychosocial disability have existed as aspirations, not as lived realities. We know that real change requires a single, unified purpose—a North Star—to guide every decision, policy, and interaction.
This Collective Good Life Vision is the result of co-design with people with lived experience of mental health challenges within the ‘Making Rights Real’ hub. It is our shared blueprint for assessing current systems and inspiring radical and compassionate change.
This isn’t just a mission statement; it’s the destination.
Our Overall Vision:
A Life of Dignity, Autonomy, and Belonging
We envision a good life for people with psychosocial disability as one where every person is empowered to live with dignity, exercise full autonomy over their choices, and experience genuine belonging and value in all aspects of their lives. It is a life where human rights are not just words on paper, but a lived reality.
This vision is more than a list of hopes and dreams; it is a framework for fundamental human rights. Our work is grounded in and aligned with the principles of the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD).
This international treaty, which Australia has ratified, serves to promote, protect, and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights for people with disabilities. Our collective vision gives practical, lived meaning to these important rights.
Achieving this vision requires transformation across three interconnected areas of life.Our North Star provides specific direction for each pillar:
1. In Mental Health Services: Lived Experience & Healing
Services are driven by lived experience leadership, offering holistic, responsive, and trauma-aware support within safe, non-clinical healing environments where people are respected as experts in their own lives.
2. In Policies: Empowered Choice & Security Policies ensure unconditional legal capacity and empowered choice (i.e., over NDIS funding), building a foundational security net that guarantees stable, chosen housing, financial independence, and proactive inclusion in all government and organisational frameworks.
3. In Community Life: Acceptance & Belonging Communities cultivate authentic belonging through diverse, identity-affirming spaces, practising acceptance for all sensory and communication needs, and promoting active inclusion and mutual support in public life.
The Three Pillars:
Transformation in Focus
We’re gathering insights to illuminate these barriers and ensure that everyone can fully
access and enjoy the human rights conveyed through the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD)
Download our Full Collective Good Life Vision Resource
This is just the map. Get the complete vision, detailed aspirations, and strategic benchmarks that will guide our collective work. This resource is essential for advocates, policymakers and service providers.