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Lived Impact Guide 01
Embedding Lived Experience in Your Organisation.
A practical guide for organisations ready to move beyond tokenistic consultation and build systems that genuinely centre the people they serve.
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Practical frameworks
Ready-to-use tools for assessing readiness, structuring roles, and running co-design processes.
Evidence-informed
Grounded in research and real organisational experience — not theory for its own sake.
Instant access
Access your guide immediately after purchase. Read online at your own pace, keep it forever.
Lived Impact Guide
Ethically Embedding Lived Experience in Your Organisation
Practical frameworks, tools, and strategies for organisations serious about structural change, not just consultation theatre.
Contents
What's inside
Beyond the Consultation Box
Why tokenistic consultation fails, and what genuine embedding actually looks like in practice.
Structural Readiness
Assessing your organisation's readiness to embed lived experience. What needs to change before you invite people in.
Roles, Power & Remuneration
How to create meaningful roles, share power appropriately, and ensure lived experience contributors are fairly compensated.
Co-Design in Practice
Practical frameworks for running co-design processes that centre lived experience without extracting it.
Sustaining the Work
Building systems and culture that keep lived experience embedded, not just for one project, but across the organisation.
Most organisations aren't doing this badly because they don't care. They're doing it badly because nobody has shown them what good looks like.
— Hayley Brown, Lived Impact
Audience
Who this is for
This guide is for you if...
You lead or work within an organisation that wants to genuinely embed lived experience, not just tick a box
You've run consultations before and know something isn't working, but aren't sure what needs to change
You want to build internal capacity, not just bring in external voices for a single project
You believe that people with lived experience of your services should have real power in shaping them
You're ready to look honestly at your organisation's structures, culture, and practices
About the author
Hayley Brown
Hayley is a lived experience leader, consultant, and the founder of Lived Impact. She has worked across domestic and family violence, child protection, mental health, disability, and community services — both as a person with lived experience and as a systems-level strategist. She writes from both sides of the table.
Ready to do this work?
Practical. Evidence-informed. Written by someone who has sat on both sides of the table.
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View guideUSING THIS WITH CLIENTS OR TEAMS?
This guide is available for individual purchase, client-use licensing and organisational use.
Please do not purchase one copy and distribute it. For client packs, team access or program use, contact Lived Impact for licensing options.
View licensing optionsThis guide is licensed for individual use by the purchaser only.
You are welcome to use the ideas, prompts and reflection points in your own practice. However, the guide itself must not be copied, forwarded, uploaded, printed for others, shared with clients, or distributed across a team without an appropriate multi-user, client-use or organisational licence.
If you would like to use this guide with clients, groups, teams or programs, please contact Lived Impact for a multi-use licence. View licence options.
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