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I hold significant lived experience advocacy and co-design experience & expertise across a broad range of health and social policy reform initiatives.

LIVED EXPERIENCE LEADERSHIP & EXPERTISE

​Through more than three decades of lived experience advocacy and community organising work I have contributed to a wide range of social movements spanning mental health, suicide prevention, harm reduction and domestic, family and sexualised violence.

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An enduring focus of this work has been the development of alternatives to clinical risk management responses to people in despair (including peer-led safe spaces for people experiencing suicidal crisis) and the embedding of new ways of working to tackle complex social challenges (including a collective impact approach to suicide prevention).​​

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I've also been involved in peer recovery groups as a member-facilitator off and on for almost twenty years across experiences of mental distress, substance use and suicidality.

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More recently, I worked in public policy as the National Mental Health Commission's inaugural Director, Lived Experience - the first senior designated Lived Experience position in the Australian Public Service. While at the Commission I led projects to co-design and establish national peaks bodies for mental health consumers and carers and a national peer workforce association.​

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I now regularly consult to senior leadership teams in government agencies and not-for-profits as a Lived Experience expert advisor. Current projects include the development of Lifeline Australia's Lived Experience Engagement Framework.

​CO-DESIGN EXPERIENCE & EXPERTISE

​​I have facilitated many consultation and co-design processes across a wide range of regional, state and national service and system improvement initiatives.

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These processes have brought together service providers, professional experts, and the people and communities most affected by a variety of complex issues, including suicide, domestic and sexualised violence, homelessness, chronic health conditions, and institutional abuse. 

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Projects include the NSW Ministry of Health's Alternatives to EDs: Safe Haven services across all Local Health Districts, the establishment of two regional Mental Health Hubs, as well as a variety of program and service design projects for Primary Health Networks, including a social prescribing service and a peer workforce development initiative.

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I also provide capability building support to government agencies and non-profits wanting to strengthen their own capacity for co-design and co-production. ​

 

I was recently engaged by the National Mental Health Commission to undertake an Environmental Scan on participatory approaches to public policymaking as part of its work to build capacity for meaningful engagement with mental health consumers and carers, families and kinship groups.

Some of the organisations that I've partnered with & consulted for

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