Accessibility Tools
What should be done and how it can be done.
In 2015, a workshop on consumer perspective supervision held at the Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council (VMIAC) workforce conference highlighted that there was a lack of expert, discipline-specific, consumer perspective supervision available. This was identified as a key risk to the workforce.
In response to this the Centre for Psychiatric Nursing (CPN), VMIAC and independent consumer leaders approached the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to collaborate on a project that would uncover and articulate the particular support needs of the consumer workforce and contribute to addressing those support needs. Consumer perspective supervision: a framework for supporting consumer workers (the Framework) forms one part of the overall project. It is intended to guide supervisees, supervisors and organisations in undertaking strong processes to support consumer perspective supervision by outlining the specific functions, importance and benefits of consumer perspective supervision.
People who have experienced mental health and addiction challenges and gained wellbeing develop many skills, knowledge, talents and attributes through those experiences. He Ara Oranga: Report of the Government Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction heard substantial evidence that people and whānau want and need their voices to be heard and to be in service design and delivery.
The Inquiry recommended that the Ministry of Health and District Health Boards strengthen people’s voices and experience in services and be accountable for delivering on this goal.
The consumer, peer support and lived experience workforce shares this view and enlarges on it. We want a future where wellbeing is realisable for all people and where lived experience voices, skills and leadership are at the heart of service and systems design and service delivery. Developing the consumer, peer support and lived experience workforce has been shown to benefit everyone in services – not just the people who access these.
This strategy will support mental health and addiction consumer, peer support and lived experience workforce development over the next five years to 2025. We intend to lead our own workforce development while robustly partnering with agencies, organisations and government to achieve our goals.
This strategy can support and inform many lived experience communities to develop roles and strategies that are meaningful to them.
As peer-delivered services are increasingly embedded within behavioral health organizations, a need has arisen to identify practices that facilitate supervision and support of peer providers. The authors present supervision strategies and lessons learned that emerged during a large pragmatic trial in three supportive housing agencies that examined a peer-delivered healthy lifestyle intervention for people with serious mental illness.
Strategies included access to multiple supervisors, formal and informal support, acknowledgment of lack of role clarity, ongoing role negotiation, a collaborative approach to troubleshooting challenges, explicit emphasis on peer specialists' value, and linking peer specialists to opportunities for mutual support and professional development.
Purpose: Recently, the importance of a lived experience workforce in the delivery of mental health services has been demonstrated. The roll-out of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in Australia has generated the need for a significant increase in the disability workforce, including psychosocial disability. The purpose of this paper is to describe the strategies outlined in the One Door Mental Health Lived Experience Framework (LEF), which is the culmination of over 30 years of experience in providing mental health services and the employment of a lived experience workforce.
Design/methodology/approach: One Door developed and implemented the LEF, a thorough guide to the employment and support of a workforce of people with lived experience of mental illness, through consultation with consumers, carers, stakeholders, practice advisors, management, human resources and employee focus groups.
Findings: Extensive support structures in the LEF are key to achieving the benefits of a lived experience workforce. The LEF has positioned One Door successfully for the achievement of key organisational goals in mental health support and advocacy.
Research limitations/implications: Mental health policies and support are critical for productivity outcomes in any workplace regardless of the level of lived experience of the employees. This paper provides organisations, particularly those within the mental health sector, an example to build on in their own employment and support strategies.
Originality/value: This paper is of particular value in the context of organisations in the mental health sector transitioning to the NDIS.
Introduced and facilitated by Lyndall Soper, Acting CEO National Mental Health Commission. Launched by David Coleman, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention.
Includes a Panel Discussion with:
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.