Stronger Together or Smarter Apart: Collaboration, Competition and the Choices that Shape Our Sector

The Lady Musgrave Trust's 18th Annual Forum on Women and Homelessness is a full-day event bringing together leaders, practitioners and people with lived experience to tackle the structural pressures holding the sector back, and find practical, shared ways to work better together.

🕐 Thursday, 6 August 2026 | 9:00am – 4:00pm

📍 Room Three Sixty, QUT Gardens Point Campus, Brisbane – with morning sessions streamed online

Solving homelessness requires more than individual effort. It demands connection, trust and a willingness to work differently. The choices we make, to collaborate or compete, shape outcomes for families every day.

But collaboration is not simple in a system under strain. Fragmented funding, policy pressures and competition for scarce resources can unintentionally pit organisations against each other, and it's the people those organisations exist to serve who bear the cost.

For the first time, the Annual Forum on Women and Homelessness will run as a full-day event, creating space for deeper conversation, practical learning and shared problem-solving across the system.

New this year, the program includes an interactive working session led by Ingrid Burkett, Co-Director of The Good Shift; a researcher, designer and systems thinker with deep experience in collaborative practice and social innovation. Participants will be invited to co-create a focused set of shared principles for working better together under current pressures.

The Forum is designed to move beyond discussion into action, with participants leaving with practical commitments and a clearer way forward.

Bringing together government, philanthropy, community organisations and lived experience, this is a Forum for those ready to engage seriously with how our sector operates and what it could look like instead.

Who attends?

The Forum convenes senior leaders, decision-makers and practitioners from across the housing and homelessness ecosystem in Queensland, including:

Women with lived experience of homelessness, whose perspectives lead and ground the conversation
Sector peak bodies and partner organisations, including Q Shelter, QCOSS, Micah Projects and BYS
Community housing providers, frontline services and specialist homelessness services from across Queensland
Philanthropic funders and social impact investors
Queensland Government representatives, including the Department of Housing and Public Works
Researchers and academics, including QUT’s Centre for Justice

Proudly presented by The Lady Musgrave Trust, in partnership with Q Shelter, QCOSS, Micah Projects, QUT's Centre for Justice, BYS, the Department of Housing and Public Works and the Department of Women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships and Multiculturalism.

To get involved or for any questions, contact CEO Victoria Parker at victoria@ladymusgravetrust.org.au.

Meet the speakers here. View the full program here.

A limited number of scholarship tickets are available on application - email office@ladymusgravetrust.org.au.

Contact the host of The Lady Musgrave Trust’s 18th Annual Forum on Women and Homelessness