Co-design sets Midland Head to Health apart

1 Apr 2022

With input from members of the community with lived experience, the centre has been co-designed to feel welcoming and safe for everyone who visits, including LGBTIQ+ people, Aboriginal people and people from diverse cultural backgrounds.

Consulting with community

St John of God Health Care Project Director Nicole Jahn says extensive local community consultation throughout the planning stages of the project is what helps set the centre apart. 

“We had many intentional conversations with consumers, people with lived experience, the local Aboriginal community and other service providers as part of the design process for this project,” Nicole said. 

“Not only was it beneficial to be able to learn from their experiences, but an opportunity for us to understand what the local community really needed from the service.” 

Creating safe spaces

Nicole said an important intention for the co-design process was ensuring there was balance between being able to effectively provide mental health care, and creating a space that would feel welcoming and safe for people seeking support. 

“We held a series of in-depth workshops as part of the co-design process and the most important question asked was ‘what does welcoming and safe look like?’ Many of the features in the centre were informed by the answers to that question,” she said. 

Design elements of the building - such as the reception area’s undulating, river-like ceiling installation - were designed to evoke emotional safety and calmness, and to reflect the natural tones and organic landscape of the Midland area and Aboriginal cultural heritage of the area.

Person-centred design

Other design elements developed through the co-design process include continuation of open space inside the building, from the front door to the back, and open access to the kitchen meeting area at the rear. 

These seemingly simple features allow everyone visiting the centre a sense of freedom to come and sit in whatever space feels comfortable to them, with access to make a cup of tea or coffee while they talk to a peer support worker, or wait to be seen by a clinician. 

“Now that the centre is open, we’ve received positive feedback from people who have visited and commented that they feel welcome as soon as they walk through the doors.  It’s such wonderful feedback to receive because that’s what we set out to do, and it’s a strong testament to the value of high-quality consumer engagement,” said Nicole.

Operating Midland Head to Health contributes to St John of God Health Care’s mental health strategy, which seeks to expand services in response to community need and design services with a strong person-centred philosophy to provide a better experience for mental health consumers.

More about Midland Head to Health.