The context and drivers for a regional approach to SP LE workforce development — background briefing part 1

Authored by Carrie Lumby

Defining Lived Experience work and the Lived Experience workforce 

Lived Experience (peer) work is recognised as a unique discipline informed by a distinct set of values, theoretical frameworks and practice principles. Lived experience workers purposefully utilise their own experience of life-changing challenges by applying these practice theories and principles in their work to support others, with the aim of building trusted relationships that promote self-determination, agency, empowerment and recovery, healing and growth(1). 

Lived Experience roles are therefore not only informed by the worker's "experience with adversity, service use or even recovery" but "how those experiences are contextualised in relation to Lived Experience concepts and literature, as well as shared issues of marginalisation, loss of identity and impacts on personal agency"(2).  

The Lived Experience workforce is made up of those who are employed in (generally paid) positions that require both personal lived experience and the capacity to work from a Lived Experience perspective as essential employment criteria, regardless of position type or setting.  

There are variety of designated Lived Experience roles spanning direct peer support, advocacy, supervision, management and governance, research, education and training, and consultancy. 

Lived Experience work in the suicide prevention context 

While the development of the Lived Experience workforce in Australia has been primarily focused on the mental health consumer and carer context, there are an increasing number of specialised workforces emerging.  

As noted in the National Lived Experience (Peer) Development Guidelines (2021), specialisation recognises the advanced skills brought required for certain types of roles (for example, in the context of research) and is also a way of respecting the intersectionality of people’s lived experiences. Workforce diversity is especially important if the Lived Experience workforce is to be culturally responsive to the needs of historically marginalised groups(3).  

These specialised workforces now include suicide prevention, as well as AOD, veterans, forensics/justice, youth, disability, and a range of culturally diverse community contexts such as LGBTIQA+. 

Suicide prevention (and postvention) lived experience workers (SP LE workers) utilise the insights gained from their life-changing experiences of suicide, including of suicidal distress, surviving a suicide attempt, caring for someone through suicidal crisis, or being bereaved through suicide.  

SP LE workfers contribute a unique mix of skills, experience and perspectives to a range of roles, organisations and settings in the context of suicide prevention.

While drawing on these unique features of their personal experiences, the practice of SPLE work is informed by the principles common to all authentic peer work practice(4).  

• Lived experience as expertise 

• Self-determination 

• Recovery-focused 

• Person-directed 

• Strengths-based 

• Relational 

• Trauma-informed 

• Humanistic 

• Voluntary 

Valuing and developing a thriving Lived Experience workforce 

There is increasing recognition that Lived Experience workers can play a vital role in the provision of effective support to people with a wide variety of lived and living experiences, resulting in improved outcomes for service users.

A thriving Lived Experience workforce, and as a result a mental health and suicide prevention service system meaningfully informed by lived experience, is considered critical to ensuring that services for people experiencing distress and crisis are truly supportive of, and promote, their individual journeys of recovery and healing(5).  

The Mental Health Commission of New South Wales prioritises peer workforce development as a key enabler of statewide system transformation, referencing the “rich knowledge that lived experience can bring to service design, delivery, monitoring, evaluation and improvement activities”(6).  

The National Lived Experience (Peer) Development Guidelines offers five priorities for support and development of the Lived Experience workforce nationally:

1. Develop a shared understanding of the role of lived experience work as a foundation

2. Support a thriving Lived Experience workforce based on safety, training, support, recognition and appropriate conditions

3. Plan for workforce growth across a breadth of employment opportunities and diverse communities

4. Integrate Lived Experience work into regional systems

5. Support from national Lived Experience strategy, leadership and representation.

These priorities are intended to be underpinned by a set of core principles, including co-production, maintaining the integrity of Lived Experience work, creating enabling conditions, responding to diversity, reducing coercive practice, and supporting systemic change and professionalisation.

Taking a regional approach to workforce development

While many of the developments described above have occurred at a national or state level, there are opportunities at a regional level to connect, develop and support the Lived Experience workforce in the context of suicide prevention.

As part of its consultation to inform how the Targeted Regional Initiatives for Suicide Prevention (TRISP) funding would be best used in the Central and Eastern Sydney region, the Central and Eastern Sydne PHN (CESPHN) identified the need for a regional approach to developing and supporting the suicide prevention Lived Experience workforce.

This consultation, occuring in 2023, led to a recommendation to ‘Develop a lived experience (peer) workforce development strategy’ for the region — this ‘strategy’ would help to:

• support the growth of the lived experience of suicide (peer) workforce as more peer-led services become established and available in the region

• create pathways for workforce development and progression

• create a more supported and connected workforce

• contribute to a shared understanding of the roles, capabilities and value of the Lived Experience workforce, including what’s required of organisations and other professionals to work in partnership with Lived Experience workers.

Given the range of workforce development activities suggested, a coordinated plan with governance arrangements and dedicated funding to tie these activities together was recommended.

The Suicide Prevention Lived Experience Workforce Development Initiative (SPLEWDI) project represents CESPHN’s efforts to ensure a coordinated regional approach to lived experience workforce development in the suicide prevention context. It is an acknowledgement that a supported lived experience workforce ultimately translates to a better mental health and suicide prevention system that is responsive to the needs and wishes of service users and the broader community.   

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1. National Mental Health Commission (2021) National Lived Experience (Peer) Workforce Development Guidelines: A practical guide to designing and developing lived experience positions.   
2. National Mental Health Commission (2020) National Lived Experience (Peer) Workforce Development Guidelines: Growing a Thriving Lived Experience Workforce – A national roadmap for collaborative development. 
3. Mental Health Commission of New South Wales. (2025) Lived Experience Leadership and Peer Workforce Development. 
4. Mental Health Commission of New South Wales. (2018). The Lived Experience Framework for NSW.
5. Mental Health Commission of New South Wales. (2018). The Lived Experience Framework for NSW.
6. Mental Health Commission of New South Wales. (2018). The Lived Experience Framework for NSW.