Accessibility Tools
Ideas of and issues in co-design and co-production including overcoming barriers.
The lived experience workforce in Australia includes peer support workers; consumer consultants; consumer companions; experts by experience and various lived experience roles in education, training, policy design and systemic advocacy. This emergent and increasingly impactful section of the mental health workforce is growing rapidly, however expansion of the roles is ad hoc with little structured workforce development to date.
Previous research also indicates the way lived experience workers are collaborated with, integrated or utilised is highly variable. A Grounded Theory study funded by the Queensland Mental Health Commission explored executive/senior management perspectives on the barriers and enablers facing the lived experience workforce, with a particular emphasis on why organisations were embracing lived experience workers to greater or lesser degrees. In-depth interviews and focus groups were held with 29 participants in total; 16 participants employed within the not-for-profit sector, 13 employed in state government run organisations.
The findings of the study overwhelming indicate executive/senior management commitment and action is critical to the success of lived experience roles. Greater or lesser understanding of lived experience work and perceived value by executive/senior management proportionately impacted the degree of commitment and action demonstrated by management. Subsequently, the degree of management commitment influenced organisational factors and ultimately, the evolution and future growth of lived experience both within organisations and outside the mental health sector.
Mental health peer work is attracting growing interest and provides a potentially impactful method of service user involvement in mental health design and delivery, contributing to mental health reform. The need to effectively support this emerging workforce is consequently increasing. This study aimed to better understand the views of management in relation to peer work and specifically explores the value of peer work from the perspective of management.
This qualitative research employed grounded theory methods. There were 29 participants in total, employed in both peer designated and non-peer designated management roles, in not for profit and public health organisations in Queensland, Australia. The value of peer work as described by participants is found to be partially dependent on practical supports and strategies from the organisation. There were high benefits for all facets of the organisation when effective recruitment and ongoing support for peer workers was prioritised and a higher perception of limitations when they were not. Due to some parallels, it may be useful to explore the potential for peer work to be conceptually and/or practically considered as a form of diversity and inclusion employment.
In this video, managers of lived experience workers (Cate Bourke and Tom Pickup) share their experiences and learnings about inclusion of lived experience workforce in mental health services.
This video of the Fish Out of Water workshop recorded the Post Discharge Initiative Forum in March 2018. In this workshop Indigo shares her thoughts and perspective about some of the barriers impacting lived experience workers employed in mental health services.
The CMHL website, cmhl.org.au, was initially built as an online portal where workforce could access training and resources from numerous training providers and organisations, as well as provide some key information about CMHL’s functions, organisational structure, and lived experience work (under the ‘Peer Inside’ banner). Peer Inside is designed for:
The National Mental Health Consumer and Carer Forum and the National Primary Health Network Mental Health Lived Experience Engagement Network acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands and waters on which we work and live on across Australia. We recognise their continuing connection to land, waters, culture and community. We pay our respects to Elders past and present.
“A lived experience recognises the effects of ongoing negative historical impacts and or specific events on the social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It encompasses the cultural, spiritual, physical, emotional and mental wellbeing of the individual, family or community.
“People with lived or living experience of suicide are those who have experienced suicidal thoughts, survived a suicide attempt, cared for someone through a suicidal crisis, been bereaved by suicide or having a loved one who has died by suicide, acknowledging that this experience is significantly different and takes into consideration Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples ways of understanding social and emotional wellbeing.” - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Lived Experience Centre
We welcome Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to this site and invite them to provide any feedback or items for inclusion.
We also recognise people with lived and living experience of mental ill-health and recovery and the experience of people who are carers, families, kin, or supporters.