Authors: Christopher Grumley & Melany Webber
Year: 2023
Event: 2023 The MHS conference - Adelaide
Subject: How laying the foundations for Peer Leadership is creating pathways for the future.
Type of resource: Conference Presentations and Papers
Abstract: Establishing and building Peer/Lived Experience Leadership within an organisation requires a robust and consistent human rights commitment foundation. When considering what needs to be implemented for this foundation to be strong, our focus is on 3 core pathways: Practice, Understanding and Culture.
We embrace our identity as an organisation committed to employing Lived Experience leaders. This leadership requires a commitment to constant growth and adaptation. The required changes occur through meaningful reflection of past actions, acknowledging current strengths and resources, and ensuring the voice of people with lived experience is at the forefront of the work.
Through the Specialist Peer Worker role and the utilisation of other Peer Specialist roles, new programs and initiatives to enhance practice, support and knowledge have been established.
These include:
- Professional Peer Supervision
- Tailored training and support
- Initiatives to discuss/reflect on practice - formal and informal.
These activities provide opportunities for Peer Workers already engaging in leadership positions to share and role-model their skills, ideas and expertise. By doing this the organisation can identify who may step into meaningful designated Peer Leadership roles, further enhancing the 3 core pathways, further progressing the organisation and its Lived Experience culture to undiscovered places.
Learning Objective
1. Delegates will learn about Peer/Lived Experience leadership 3 core pathways that secure strong foundations of Practice, Understanding, Culture.
2. The presentation is relevant to the mental-health sector as it showcases how a lived experience peer workforce and peer/lived experience leadership can be accomplished through development, facilitation, participation within mental-health.
References
Australian Government- National Mental Health Commission- National Lived Experience (Peer) Workforce Development Guidelines 2022: Summary of Consultations - Chapter 8, page 27.
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