Recently we held a 'Shaping a trauma-informed Queensland' forum and since then we have held a number of smaller consultations to hear from our stakeholders and communities. Thank you to all who have joined us and shared your insights.
There are still some final consultation events to come if you haven't yet had the chance to participate. A reminder that our online trauma strategy consultation hub is also live, which is where you can find consultation papers, a survey, and information on providing a submission.
Vale Alisa Whitehead
In some sad news, I would like to acknowledge the recent passing of Alisa Whitehead, aged 97. Alisa was the Commission's inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award recipient and made extraordinary contributions to the mental health sector, particularly to carer and family support initiatives. She was Arafmi's longest serving member, helped establish their 24-hour support service for carers across the state and also co-founded Carers Queensland. Through her numerous achievements, Ailsa has had - and will continue to - have a profound impact on the lives of many families and carers. Vale Ailsa.
Mental health and wellbeing strategy
Health and Wellbeing Queensland in partnership with the Commission are also hosting a number of regional consultation events to assist with the development of Queensland's Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy. Good mental health and wellbeing is the foundation for thriving individuals, families and communities and the aim of the strategy is to focus on what keeps Queenslanders well and improve community mental health and wellbeing across the state. A series of community consultations, in-person and online, are scheduled over April and May. You can find the full list and register here. The Draft Queensland Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy is also now open for feedback.
Drug checking in Queensland
It's been great to see the implementation of drug checking services in Queensland, with drug checking occurring for the first time in Queensland at the Rabbits Eat Lettuce festival over Easter. Queensland’s first fixed-site drug-checking service, CheQpoint has also launched in Brisbane this month with a second fixed-site drug-checking service to follow in July. This marks a significant milestone under Achieving balance: The Queensland Alcohol and Other Drugs Plan 2022-2027 and has the potential to minimise harm and save lives.
Thriving Queensland Kids Partnership project
In case you missed it, I also had the pleasure of announcing the Enabling Workforces and Organisations for Thriving Kids project. It's a new collaborative project aiming to uncover and embed learnings on the impacts of adversity and trauma to better equip organisations to respond to and support children, young people and families in Queensland. The Commission is investing $425,000 in the project which will be jointly led by a number of Queensland-based and national organisations, including Thriving Queensland Kids Partnership. You can find out more about this work here.
QuIVAA overdose paper
Finally, I wanted to share Voices of lived experience: Understanding overdose narratives among people who use drugs in Queensland - a research paper developed by QuIVAA and Griffith University. The paper explores overdose experiences among people who use drugs. Importantly for the participants, it marks the first time they had been asked to contribute their knowledge and experience to improve harm reduction messaging, approaches and system design, and has a number of powerful findings. Thank you to QuIVAA, Griffith University, project leads Emma Kill and Tim Piatkowski, and all the research participants who generously shared their knowledge, experience and expertise.
