Our West Sydney

We are a community that connects people and ideas for person-centred health innovation.

Our West Sydney

We are community members, health care providers, WentWest staff members building relationships into partnerships to realise our single purpose. We have Our West Sydney in focus through connecting high quality information and ideas.

Our purpose

Our West Sydney has been set up by WentWest. We lead integrated care for equitable access to the services needed by our Western Sydney communities.

WentWest commissions many services in Western Sydney. These services may have an impact on you, your friends, or your family. We believe that everyone has the right to participate in discussions that might affect them.

Everyone has valuable knowledge to contribute to decisions. When we incorporate everyone’s perspectives we create a better understanding of a situation, opening up more ideas and opportunities than any one person could develop alone.


Nothing about us, without us

- James Charlton, Disability rights activist

No policy should be decided without the full and direct participation of members of the group affected by that policy.

Western Sydney

Western Sydney is one of the most diverse communities in Australia. We are vibrant communities with proud and resilient histories. We’re the West.

We are home to one of NSW’s largest Aboriginal populations (1.7% of our community identifies as Aboriginal, compared to 1.5% in Greater Sydney). Almost half of our community were born overseas and 39.4% of the population does not speak English. By 2030 Western Sydney will expand by 38% to reach 1,313,288 people.

How does it work?

Step 1: Click join and set up your profile.

Don’t forget to add a photograph and write a little bit about yourself. This helps us all to connect. Our West Sydney is a network of people - no robots here. 

Step 2: Once you are in the network you can join groups, explore topics and learn through courses. 

Move through the site through the navigation pane on the left side of your page. You can explore the page without being signed in, but you won't be able to participate unless you are signed in. 

You decide what information comes up in your home feed, based on what groups you join. Some groups are private, if you want to join our hosts will have to approve your request.

Step 3: Download the app on your phone so you can post from anywhere. 

 

Learning the lingo 

Sometimes we use words or jargon to help us identify each other and speak more efficiently about ideas. But, for the same reason certain words can help us connect, they can also make it harder for others to participate. While we all try our best not to use jargon on Our West Sydney, here are a few words or phrases you might hear in our Mighty Network:

Consumer: People who use, have used, or are potential users of health services.

Consumer representative: Usually, a volunteer who partners with health service staff to plan design, monitor, and evaluate health services.

Lived experience: Representation of the experiences and choices of a given person, and the knowledge that they gain from these experiences and choices.

Primary Health Network (PHN): A PHN is a local organisation whose job is to understand the health care needs of people in that local area, and, on behalf of the Commonwealth, pay for services the local community needs to be healthy and well.

Integrated care is about setting up a seamless, effective, and efficient system for meeting all of a person's health needs.

We acknowledge the Darug people as the First Nations peoples and the traditional custodians of the land on which we work. We pay our respects to Elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people within Western Sydney.