Our Commitment to Lived and Living Experience
Juno is deeply committed to embedding lived experience as a core priority across our work. This commitment is reflected in our strategic plan and guides how we design, deliver and improve our services.
We are taking the following actions:
- Embedding our client engagement framework to empower lived expertise in our advocacy and programs
- Engaging with lived experience knowledge in the design, development and review of services
- Ensuring our work is effective, evidence-based and driven by the people we support
Our work with lived experience advisers is guided by Safe and Equal’s Family Violence Experts by Experience Framework and The Constellation Project’s Lived Experience Practice Framework.
Homelessness and family violence responses that truly work for women, trans, and gender diverse people and their families can only be achieved by working alongside those with lived experiences of these issues.
Juno’s Lived Experience Advisory Group
Juno established the Lived Experience Advisory Group (LEAG) in August 2025. The group brings together Lived Experience Advisers with direct experience of homelessness, housing insecurity, family violence, and gender-based poverty. Having accessed a range of Juno’s services, they now contribute their knowledge and insight to help strengthen our work.
Through workshops and ongoing collaboration, LEAG members help shape how our work evolves. Their expertise ensures our services are inclusive, accessible and responsive to the realities of the communities we support.
We have intentionally begun with a small, focused group to prioritise safety, trust and meaningful participation. This approach allows us to build and refine sustainable processes before expanding toward a broader co-design model.
The LEAG strengthens accountability and plays a central role in embedding lived experience across Juno’s operations. It helps ensure our services are high quality, safer, accessible, and inclusive for everyone. This includes for people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, LGBTQIASB+ communities, First Peoples, people with disabilities, neurodivergent people, people of all ages and family structures, and anyone facing systemic, structural, or societal barriers.
By centering lived and living experience, we create services that genuinely reflect the people they are designed for.
Embed lived experience perspectives in decision-making, service design, and advocacy
- Ensure Juno’s policies, processes and materials are inclusive, accessible and trauma-informed, reflecting the needs and experiences of people from diverse backgrounds
- Build a safe, respectful foundation for collaboration and shared leadership
- Strengthen the organisation’s lived experience framework and practices
- Test and refine processes for ongoing advisory engagement
- Evaluate the initial project’s outcomes and readiness for a co-design approach
LEAG members include current or former Juno clients who have received support from our Homelessness Case Management, Family Violence Case Management, or EMPower programs. If you are interested in joining, please email and include which Juno program you received support from, why you’re interested in participating, and any other relevant experience you would like to share.
The LEAG is guided by a shared co-chair structure, with leadership split between a Lived Experience Adviser and the LEAG Coordinator. This ensures that lived experience is central to decision-making, leadership, and service design. The co-chair role rotates among Advisers, providing opportunities to develop leadership skills, share power, and sustain the influence of lived experience across the group’s work.
The LEAG Coordinator provides leadership and facilitation to ensure that the voices of people with lived experience are at the centre of our work. Drawing on their own lived experience of family violence and homelessness, the coordinator creates a safe, inclusive, and respectful space for members to share their insights and shape decision-making. They lead meetings, develop and prepare workshop content and resources, and work closely with members and staff to translate lived experience into meaningful improvements across Juno’s services, policies, and practices.
Advisers are paid for their time and expertise in recognition of the value of lived experience, including covering the cost of accessibility needs to enable participation. This remuneration acknowledges the importance of their contribution and ensures their knowledge, skills, and insights are appropriately valued as part of Juno’s decision-making, service design, and continuous improvement work.
The group will engage in ongoing review and evaluation processes to reflect on its impact, effectiveness, and areas for continuous improvement. Advisers will play an active role in shaping this process, helping to inform how the group evolves and strengthens its co-design approach over time.
- Strengthened Juno’s Lived and Living Experience Policy, Case Management Intake Forms, Feedback and Complaints Policy and Procedure, and feedback resources, including a Simple English Feedback and Complaints brochure, to increase accessibility, inclusion, and feelings of safety for clients.
- Developed a Visual Intake Journey Resource to help reduce anxiety and uncertainty by supporting clients to better understand what to expect during their initial intake appointment.
- Redesigned Juno’s Closure Feedback Survey to create more meaningful opportunities for clients to share their experiences and to strengthen data collection for ongoing service improvement.
