Lived Experience (Peer) Workforce Development Guidelines: release of additional companion documents

The National Mental Health Commission maintains an enduring commitment to expanding and supporting Australia’s Lived Experience (Peer) workforce, especially as they are recognised and integrated into the mental health and suicide prevention workforce. We value the significant role the Lived Experience (Peer) workforce plays in meeting the mental health needs of the community.

Lived Experience (Peer) workforce members are valued professionals who support people experiencing mental health issues or distress from a human rights and social justice perspective rather than a medical perspective. They are employed to use their own Lived Experience of mental health issues, or supporting someone with mental health issues, to understand and relate to the experiences of others and improve the experience of service use and promote personal recovery and wellbeing.

The Lived Experience (Peer) workforce plays a key role in assuring the quality and appropriateness of services for those who access them, and their families and communities.

As part of recognising and prioritising this, the Commission worked with leaders in the Lived Experience (Peer) workforce to lead the development of the National Lived Experience (Peer) Workforce Development Guidelines. The Guidelines are a key reform initiative of the Fifth National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan. The Commission thanks the many Lived Experience leaders for their valued contributions, including the Steering Committee, led by co-chairs Tim Heffernan and Margaret Doherty, and the research and writing team from RMIT, which comprised of Dr Louise Byrne, Dr Lena Wang, Helena Roennfeldt, Dr Melissa Chapman, Ms Leilani Darwin, Calista Castles, Leanne Craze AM, Margaret Saunders. The Commission also acknowledges the tremendous work of Lesley Cook.

These Guidelines provide an overview of the professional Lived Experience (Peer) workforce, together with detailed steps for employers at each stage, from planning a Lived Experience (Peer) workforce, through to embedding it as part of core business.

The Commission is pleased to share phase two of the National Lived Experience (Peer) Workforce Development Guidelines - a new series of guides specifically for agencies and organisations who design, deliver and commission mental health services.

The new suite complements the initial suite, and includes four guides that focus on the mental health sector:

• Getting started – first steps to a Lived Experience workforce development plan in mental health organisations.
• Investing in Lived Experience workforce development – an introduction for mental health service organisation governance and executives.
• Lived Experience workforce development in mental health – a planning resource for Primary Health Networks.
• Planning the future mental health workforce – an introduction for mental health service managers and human resource managers.

We recommend anyone who leads, manages, or commissions mental health services to review these guides, and begin planning to grow and support their own Lived Experience workforce. The Commission acknowledges those jurisdictions who have already begun to implement the guidelines.

Strengthening the understanding of the benefits of a Lived Experience (Peer) workforce will help everyone.

Regards

The National Mental Health Commission

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