Health & Social Impact
Design services and systems with the people affected by them, not merely for them. We advise organisations shaping services, policies, programs and systems that affect people's lives, bringing engagement expertise that is grounded rather than performative.
The problem
Consultation is not participation
Health and social-impact systems are full of consultation that changes nothing: surveys nobody reads, advisory groups convened after the decision, engagement reports filed and forgotten. The people affected notice. Trust erodes, and the next consultation starts from further behind.
This capability exists to do it properly. That means engagement designed to influence real decisions, advisory structures with genuine standing, accessibility treated as a requirement rather than a retrofit, and honest advice about what a service or policy will feel like to the people on the receiving end.
If engagement cannot change the decision, it is not engagement. It is announcement with extra steps.
Services
What this covers
Engage and include
Bringing the right voices into the work, with real influence.
- Lived-experience consultation
- Consumer and carer engagement
- Stakeholder consultation and advisory-group design
- Co-design strategy
- Multicultural engagement and youth participation design
Review and advise
Independent examination of services, policies and systems.
- Health and mental-health advisory
- Disability and accessibility review
- Policy and framework review
- Service and program review
- Health-research engagement and public-sector project advice
Design and govern
Building the structures that make good intentions durable.
- Inclusive service design
- Governance support
- Social-impact innovation
Scope of this work. Sagetor provides advisory, engagement, policy and service-design support. We do not provide clinical mental-health care, medical advice or other regulated health services, and our work is not a substitute for them.
Who this suits
Organisations accountable to people
Health services and mental-health organisations. Government agencies and public-sector programs. Disability and carer organisations. Research institutions seeking meaningful consumer involvement. Nonprofits, associations and peak bodies designing programs their communities will actually use.
The advice is informed by direct experience in advisory and governance roles across government, health, mental health, disability, carer, youth and community systems. It also draws on building and maintaining a consumer and stakeholder register for engagement work.
A typical engagement
From intention to trusted practice
A representative sequence: a review examines the service, policy or engagement approach against evidence and lived-experience insight. An engagement or co-design strategy defines who must be involved and how their input will shape decisions. Advisory structures, governance and accessible materials make the practice durable beyond a single project.
When to bring us in
When a service, policy or program is being designed or reviewed, when engagement has to inform a decision rather than confirm one already made, when a funder or board expects evidence of genuine participation, or when accessibility needs an honest assessment.
How this work runs
Your point of contact is always a Principal, and which Principal depends on the work and the stage it has reached. That Principal scopes the engagement, coordinates the work and remains accountable for it. Delivery is carried out by the Principals, by trusted consultants, or by both. Current specialist capability includes risk, fraud risk and anti-money laundering.
Outside scope. We do not provide clinical mental-health care, medical advice or other regulated health services, and this work is not a substitute for them.
Next step
Designing something that affects people?
Tell us about the service, policy or program and the people it serves. We will respond with a view on how engagement and review could strengthen it.