A strategy for a more connected, people-centred service system.
Across Australia, people and communities face increasing and compounding pressures that impact health and wellbeing. When services respond to these pressures in isolation, people can be left navigating fragmented systems – health here, housing there, legal somewhere else. But there is another way.
Our 2025–2028 Strategy builds on nearly a decade of momentum. It sets out how we’ll strengthen the movement, deepen collaboration, and catalyse evidence-based, cross-sector solutions that help people and families access support earlier, more easily, and with dignity.
Meet our supporters:
The purpose that drives us
Across sectors, people are coming together to collaborate. These are the professionals, says paediatrician Professor Sharon Goldfeld, who see their role as making a fundamental difference to the social fabric of this country.
At Health Justice Australia, we envision a future where a groundswell of health, legal and social services across Australia are supported, enabled and resourced to better meet people’s needs and uphold rights through collaborative approaches that promote health and wellbeing.
Our vision is for everyone to thrive. And we believe that this will happen when people and families can access holistic, inclusive support whenever and wherever it’s needed.
What collaboration makes possible
Our work with partners like Neami National shows what happens when we respond to people’s needs with connected, coordinated support.
Neami staff told us they were spending a lot of time helping clients navigate legal issues – housing, debt, fines, safety – but didn’t always feel equipped to handle them. Through our research and capability-building work, we helped Neami develop practical ways for staff to identify legal issues that arose in their work with clients. Then we worked with them to build the cross-sector collaborations that would help staff respond to those legal issues that were affecting their clients’ mental health.
Our research projects delivered in collaboration with Neami National – including the paper, Assessing legal need and capability for health justice partnership – have also informed our national advocacy.
Our contributions to the Suicide Prevention Strategy, for example, highlight why early legal support matters for mental health and wellbeing.
Together, this work is helping services respond earlier, more confidently, and in ways that better meet the realities of people’s lives.
Stepping forward at a critical moment.
While it might seem unusual to have a lawyer embedded in a healthcare service, the impact is clear, says Tom Dalton, CEO of Neami National.
“Our staff aren’t always equipped to navigate legal complexity, yet it affects so many of the people we support.”
This is why our strategy builds on nearly a decade of field-building—supporting connected, collaborative approaches that help services respond earlier and more effectively to the challenges families face.
Our unique role
National cross-sector vantage point
We’re the only organisation with a national vantage point to connect cross-sector services including the health, legal and social sectors.
Independent and trusted
Trusted by researchers, policymakers, funders, services and practitioners, we build and translate research and practice evidence to transform service delivery and support evidence-based policy reform.
We’re not a service provider. Our role is to connect, convene, support and grow a collective movement.
“Field-building intermediaries are organisations that work with many actors to influence significant, most often systemic, change. They may engage in catalysing new kinds of leadership and collective action, developing new knowledge and evidence, and strengthening capability across a field, all to influence change at scale.”
Building capability to respond to the realities families face
Paediatrician and Associate Director of Research at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Professor Harriet Hiscock, has seen how embedding legal support within healthcare strengthens the care families receive. In her practice, a young girl was missing school and facing eviction with her father—issues that couldn’t be solved by healthcare alone.
Through a collaborative approach, Harriet was able to connect the family with an onsite lawyer who helped them secure stable housing. It’s a clear example of what becomes possible when health, social and legal workforces have the capability, confidence and shared language to work together.
This is the kind of integrated, collaborative practice our strategy aims to strengthen—equipping practitioners with the tools, partnerships and support they need to respond to the complex, interconnected challenges families experience every day.
Ella's story
Ella was receiving support through a perinatal mental health unit. She had two young children, and her partner’s behaviour had become increasingly controlling—monitoring her movements, accessing her phone and financial accounts, and contacting her in ways that left her feeling unsafe.
Staff at the unit recognised that Ella needed coordinated support. They referred her to their health justice partnership so she could receive legal advice alongside her mental health care.
Because it was likely her partner was tracking her communications, the partnership lawyer arranged to meet Ella during an appointment with her psychologist. Meeting in a familiar, trusted environment made it safer and easier for her to talk about what was happening.
The lawyer explained Ella’s options, including applying for a Family Violence Order. At the time, Ella wasn’t sure how her partner might react, and needed space to consider her next steps.
Five days later, she contacted the lawyer to proceed. The lawyer met her at the Magistrates Court, supported her through the application process, and secured an Interim Family Violence Order. They also worked with police to ensure the order was served safely, at a time when her partner did not have the children with him.
Ella’s partner later accepted the orders, and the phone-based abuse stopped. Ella’s psychologist shared that she wouldn’t have felt able to take these steps without the coordinated support of both her mental health team and the partnership lawyer.
These are just some of the ways that integrated services can make a meaningful difference in people’s lives.
Strengthening impact through shared knowledge and collaboration
“In the words of our staff? The difference we’ve seen from our health justice partnership is outstanding.”
For cohealth, one of Australia’s largest community health organisations, embedding legal help within their services has shown how powerful cross-sector collaboration can be.
Chris Turner, Deputy CEO, explains, “We know that the issues affecting someone in their legal context can have real impacts on their health, particularly their mental health.”
This is the kind of impact our national research and learning networks aim to strengthen—ensuring services can access shared knowledge, build capability together, and embed health justice partnership approaches in ways that improve outcomes for both staff and the communities they serve.