Hi, I’m Sue
I’m a co-design and working with enthusiast. I help organisations put people at the heart of policy, health service reform, and product design and development.
I draw on over 10 years experience in health leadership and advocacy in local health services, state and federal bodies, national consultancies, private companies and research projects. My lived and professional experience grounds my work embedding lived experience led approaches into the design, development and delivery of products, services and systems with communities.
Learn about my values, approach and reason for starting the Better Together Collective.
-
-
I believe in the power of people working together.
I use
everyday words to include more people and cut across sectors and settings. ( I’ve seen first hand how jargon can keep people out, protect power, and prevent great work happening).
practical guidance - designed to help people and organisations start where they’re at and get better over time. The goal is real not perfect
I won’t try to
convince you that lived experience matters - it does
claim or imply that I invented these ways of working - I did not
-
It was my own lived experience that brought me to this field many years ago. As an advocate, I sat at many tables and had many different ‘engagement’ and ‘co-design’ experiences. When I went on to work in a range of lived experience and community engagement roles, I wanted to replicate the good tables and worthwhile experiences. It wasn’t easy and I often felt overwhelmed, frustrated, worried about getting it wrong.
I know the blood, sweat and tears that go into encouraging, educating and supporting organisations to mature their engagement approaches away from buzzwords and tokenism towards meaningful results where everyone benefits.
I wanted to build a place to celebrate and advance better practice.
As well as guides and tools, support and training that would have helped me… given me the confidence to start where I was and to keep getting better.
It’s called the Better Together Collective because I truly believe that when people see beyond their differences and come together with curiosity about the things that matter, real and powerful change can happen for the common good.
-
Collaborators
I collaborate with great humans and talented practitioners with complementary skills to the services we offer.
Maria Tchan
Maria (she/her) and I have worked together across various sectors and settings over the past decade. The founder of Iota Impact, Maria’s a highly skilled facilitator, experienced healthcare professional evaluation consultant and service manager with over 20 years’ experience in community consultation, Aboriginal health, and mental health.
Maria has a Master of Public Health and holds memberships with Australian Evaluation Society and Social Impact Measurement Network Association. We use our combined skill sets to team up on projects that bring organisations and their people together to find common ground, build meaningful partnerships and make good things happen. Read more here.
KA McKercher
KA McKercher (them/they) is the proprietor of Beyond Sticky Notes and an internationally recognised co-design leader. KA specialises in co-design within public health and community health. KA is the author of ‘Beyond Sticky Notes: Doing Co-design for Real.’
We work on participatory design projects that are aligned with our combined 20+ years of experience across a wide range of primary, secondary and community and Indigenous-led health settings across Australia and New Zealand. Read about one of those projects, All of Us for NSW Health.
Creative partners
Nina Sepahpour
Nina (she/her) is a Melbourne based textile designer and illustrator.
Her magnificent handiwork adorns many WithUs covers and Better Together resources.
Ellen Muller
Ellen (she/her) is a freelance writer, zine and collage queen.
Ellen brings out the best in every WithUs article, and makes each issue shine.