Mind Australia leaders have shared insights on how to champion lived and living experience of mental health and wellbeing challenges.
Mind CEO Gill Callister was among speakers at Mind’s Lived Experience Strategy Webinar: Reimagining culture, workforce and leadership on 11 July, where leaders discussed the implementation of Mind’s Lived Experience Strategy and how it has cemented the organisation’s status as a recognised leader in the delivery and innovation of lived experience approaches to mental health support.
Mind’s Lived Experience Strategy was launched in December 2021 and developed to define lived experience and lived expertise work, and committing Mind to a whole of organisation approach to integrating lived experience.
Mind’s increased investment in and commitment to lived experience at all levels of the organisation includes the recently created role of Executive Director Lived Experience.
Hundreds of people tuned in to listen to Mind’s lived experience leaders share their approach and experience as part of a collective vision for a sector and community that amplifies lived expertise to drive reform and transformational change in the mental health sector.
The importance of lived experience
Katie Larsen is Mind’s Senior Manager Inclusion and Participation – a designated lived experience role which oversees a division dedicated to lived experience, lived expertise strategy and operations, and work on inclusion for marginalised communities.
In the webinar, Katie described Mind’s work and her personal experience of harnessing her own mental health challenges in her work as “unique and sacred”.
“These are the parts of who we are that have felt broken, been marginalised, carry scars and painful stories, and we hold them in our professional lives,” Katie said.
“Those of us in these expertise roles draw from personal stories and experiences of marginalisation, trauma and harm.
“For me, this has been a mostly healing process, with the most incredible support from many, not least my lived experience colleagues right across the country and most profoundly by leading this work at Mind, where this is ingrained in who we are and (Mind) offers a long history of developing and producing lived experience leaders.”
Katie said this work has meant people with lived experience of mental health and wellbeing challenges were “no longer hiding quietly in the shadows”.
“My experiences of psychosis, trauma, alcohol and other drug use, phobias, crippling anxiety, internalised homophobia and shame and disassociation amongst other things, that caused and were caused by many years of physical, emotional and spiritual pain, impacted every moment of every day for a considerable period of time.
“These experiences have also forced radical change in my life, my identity, my perspective, my relationships and my work. With time and healing they have moved from what may be broken to being at the core of my strength. Rather than hiding them so it could work, they are central to who I am in my work and how I work.
“That is the power of lived experience work; it doesn’t minimise a person’s experience of illness as wrong or broken, it amplifies this experience as truth, possibility and, over time with the right support, draws from wisdom and guidance to build a lived expertise.”
Lived experience at Mind Australia
Mind’s Lived Experience Strategy was developed to amplify lived expertise, create a platform for change and to ensure Mind uses best practice for the people we support.
Mind is at the halfway mark of the strategy which features four pillars; leadership and culture, design and decision making, workforce development and innovation, and influence.
Katie said the strategy’s targets were being met but the process was more than the defined deliverables.
“This process is one of learning, shifting and questioning. Moving beyond the things that we do to the how and why of change,” Katie said.
“Lived experience workforce, culture and leadership provides us with the alternative to clinical and corporate models and frameworks that dominate our mental health systems.
“Lived experience models enable concepts of power and privilege to be at the centre, we want to critically reflect on and challenge social and cultural notions of work, culture and leadership completely. And in doing so, provide a model that is rooted in collaborative approaches to social justice and change.”
Lived experience leadership and workforce
Dr Louise Byrne is the Lived Experience Executive Advisor at Mind Australia. She is a Senior Research Fellow at RMIT who is recognised internationally as a thought leader in lived experience workforce development, and led the research and writing of the National Lived Experience Workforce Development Guidelines.
Dr Byrne has been instrumental in helping Mind develop and implement its Lived Experience Workforce Plan and strategy.
“Research tells us the key challenges are in truly embedding lived experience across organisations and the sector more broadly,” Dr Byrne said.
“At the heart of embedding lived experience rather than fitting lived experience into the existing systems are strategies to protect and maintain authentic lived experience perspectives and practice. Central to those strategies is employment of lived experience leadership roles across all levels of the organisation – this is not negotiable. We need these roles to ensure lived experience perspectives are provided with the ability to impact.”
Dr Byrne said lived experience leadership enables capacity building, role clarity and career progression for lived experience workers.
Mind’s Lived Experience Workforce Plan includes a comprehensive pathway with multilayered strategies spanning three key areas:
maintaining and enabling authentic lived experience practice
recruitment and human resources policies and processes that align with lived experience principles, and
workplace culture and values that accept lived experience throughout the organisation.
Dr Byrne said Mind’s program of improvement "truly embeds lived experience where it belongs; at the centre and at the core of everyone they do.”
How Mind is developing its lived experience workforce
Brett Williams, Mind’s General Manager – South Australian Operations, has led Mind’s lived experience workforce in South Australia.
Mr Williams, who has his own lived experience of mental health and wellbeing challenges, said he has expanded Mind’s lived experience workforce by focussing on appropriate training and supports, frameworks and leadership.
“It occurred to me that 50 per cent of our staff identify as having a lived experience and that wasn’t reflected in the number of designated lived experience roles or people declaring that openly,” Mr Williams said.
He did two things to address this issue: created a training and development program for staff who have a lived experience so they could transition into peer practitioner roles, and he decided future positions in his programs would be advertised purely as peer practitioner positions.
This coincided with a pilot program in northern Adelaide known as Connect, which was 100% peer led and delivered.
“That gave us a good grounding on the necessary parts and processes around providing the support, training and intentional space for peer practitioners to develop authentic ways of working,” Mr Williams said.
Mind has significantly increased the number of designated peer practitioners and the number of people in lived experience leadership roles over the last two years in South Australia.
Mr Williams said people in these lived experience roles have been supported by training, communities of practice, supervision, reflective practice sessions and forums.
“The impact that we saw has been phenomenal,” Mr Williams said.
“Staff consistently report that they feel very well supported in their ability to operate authentically as peers. They appreciate being given that intentional space to be able to work on their professional development.”
A cultural shift for mental health service providers
Mind CEO Gill Callister said the development of the Lived Experience Strategy was a milestone moment for the organisation, but the true challenge came in how it would be implemented.
“I’ve seen many strategies sit on shelves, and it strikes me that one of the things you really need in this work is both head and heart,” Ms Callister said.
“The ultimate ‘why’ for me is to get better and provide transformative outcomes for people who need to use mental health services.
“For those outcomes to be positive and clear, the evidence tells us that engaging people with lived experience and expertise throughout the organisation, not just in service delivery, will help us get those outcomes.”
Dr Louise Byrne’s Ongoing Lived Experience Workforce Development and Planning at Mind presentation (PDF 1.4 MB)
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