Status: In progress
What the Royal Commission said
The Royal Commission recognised the important contribution of workers with lived experience. It also identified issues that contribute to the shortage of workers with lived experience across the system.
This includes:
- a lack of organisational support and leadership
- limited access to supervision
- unclear roles and responsibilities
- stigma
- workers not feeling valued
- the burden of being a lone worker
- limited full-time roles
- limited career opportunities, particularly in leadership
- low pay
The Royal Commission called for more workers with lived experience across all levels of the mental health system.
The recommendation includes:
- improved education and training options for lived experience workers
- optional qualifications for lived experience workers
- adding the Certificate IV in Mental Health Peer Work to the free TAFE course list
- improved support and career structures for lived experience workers including coaching and supervision
- a mandatory organisational readiness and training program for senior leaders
- improved induction for new staff that recognises the value and expertise of lived experience workers
- a survey of workers with lived experience to understand their experiences in the mental health system
- ongoing accountability measures.
What we've delivered
Investment
- Invested over $140 million to elevate and enable Lived and Living Experience leadership. This included $51 million in lived and living experience workforce development delivered through:
- 131 Lived and Living Experience Leadership Development Grants of up to $5,000 since 2023
- awarded 42 tertiary scholarships of up to $13,000 each to develop emerging and established leaders in the workforce.
Workforce and capability growth
- Significantly increased the number of lived and living experience workforce roles in our Area Mental Health and Wellbeing Services from 163 FTE in 2021 to 366 FTE in 2025. This represents an increase of 125 per cent in FTE employed over four years.
- Our Peer Cadet Program has seen 98 cadets recruited to the program since 2021-22.
- Ongoing delivery of the Lived and Living Experience Workforce Development Program, which has rolled out more than 60 initiatives since 2022 to provide training, supervision, practice supports, career pathways, and organisational readiness programs, in partnership with nine agencies.
The Collective
- Established The Collective in 2025, a new consortium comprising partner agencies. The Collective will deliver 10 lived and living experience workforce initiatives. Self Help Addiction Resource Centre (SHARC) is the lead agency for The Collective and the employer of the new roles.
- The Collective is partnering with the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing on this work to ensure a whole-of-workforce approach to capability development, sharing knowledge, expertise and infrastructure.
Resource development
- Developed and published discipline frameworks that articulate the values, principles and scope of practice for five lived and living experience workforces (mental health consumer lived experience workforce, mental health family carer lived experience workforce, harm reduction lived and living experience workforce, alcohol and other drugs lived experience workforce, and alcohol and other drugs family lived experience workforce).
- These frameworks are designed to guide future training and development, and support consistency in practice throughout the sector.
- Ongoing delivery of a program offering discipline-specific supervision for the consumer and family/carer mental health workforces. Eligible lived experience workers can apply to access supervision from a list of supervisors on a centralised database. Training for consumer and family/carer perspective supervisors has also been developed and rolled out to increase supervisor availability and expertise.
- An organisational readiness program, led by lived experience experts at SHARC, offers mental health and wellbeing services a supported assessment of their current employment conditions and recommends strategies for improvement.
Lived and Living Experience Workforces Data Project
- In 2022, 342 lived and living experience workers and 42 mental health, alcohol and other drugs, and harm reduction service delivery organisations were surveyed as part of the Lived and Living Experience Workforces Data Project. This project established a baseline to help inform the development of new accountability processes.
What's next?
Lived and Living Experience Workforces Data Project
- Future data will be collected through the broader mental health and wellbeing workforce census, with reports published annually.
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