The challenge
This 2023 project with Junction Australia set out to capture learnings from The Young Parent Project (TYPP) – a co-designed peer support program for young parents aged 16-24 – and explore how it could inform a broader, more embedded approach to lived experience peer mentoring roles across the organisation.
Our vision
With TYPP demonstrating a strong impact over two years of delivery, Junction Australia saw an opportunity to build on its success by developing a robust practice and implementation framework that could support the program’s expansion.
At the same time, Junction Australia was looking to grow its capacity to support peer roles across its services. By reflecting on existing knowledge and practice, the organisation aimed to deepen its understanding of what best practice looks like in peer mentoring and how lived experience can be embedded meaningfully and sustainably across the organisation.
Our approach
To support the future scaling of the Young Parent Project (TYPP), TACSI contributed a range of insights and strategic support. This included:
- Sharing lessons from scaling peer-to-peer models such as Family by Family and Weavers
- Identifying key considerations for scoping new sites, and for recruiting and onboarding staff into peer roles
- Providing guidance on maintaining program fidelity and quality as the model expands
TACSI also facilitated a series of co-design workshops that helped Junction Australia refine and develop program delivery tools and resources. These workshops:
- Clarified what’s needed to successfully embed peer roles
- Informed updates to existing policies
- Identified critical next steps to support the growth of the program
Through this collaborative process, a suite of digital materials was co-designed to support implementation, provide consistency and serve as a foundation for quality assurance as the program scales to new locations.
While TYPP was the primary focus of the project, the process also created space for broader reflection at Junction Australia – enabling the organisation to examine the systems, policies and practices that support lived experience roles to be meaningful and sustainable.
The insights
The project surfaced several important insights about scaling peer models and embedding lived experience roles:
- Creating safe, responsive environments is essential for lived experience roles to thrive and for peer models to be sustainable.
- Organisational willingness to reflect, learn, and shift mindsets is vital. Embedding lived experience can be challenging, but also deeply transformative.
- Scaling a co-designed model requires ongoing commitment to quality, with a strong focus on preserving the original values and intent.
- Lived experience voices must remain central when considering scale, especially when navigating fidelity and adaptation.
- An iterative mindset creates space for adaptation and responsiveness, but works best when grounded in a clear model, with defined practice principles and role functions.
The next steps
Junction Australia has secured three years of government funding to support the scale and implementation of the Young Parent Project model.
As part of this work, a suite of co-designed practice guidelines and tools has been developed to enable consistent delivery and maintain fidelity as the program expands.
Looking ahead, Junction is committed to sharing learnings and collaborating across the sector, with the goal of building a broader platform for peer practice within the family and child services space.
