Strengthening connections
People with personal experience of mental illness and recovery can play a vital role in shaping the delivery of services. Their unique perspectives allow them to connect with others from a place of understanding and experience.
Through positions such as peer support workers and consumer advisors, they make invaluable contributions to our services and the community.
This year we began work on a Lived Experience Strategy that aims to see peer support workers incorporated across EMHS in greater numbers, bridging an important gap between health services and the people who use them.
Already active within some of our services and consumer advisory bodies, we are committed to taking their involvement to the next level.
It is a new era in recognising the roles they can play in the effectiveness of mental health services in areas from personal support to education, research, advocacy, management and decision-making.
As work on the Lived Experience Strategy continued, we took some important steps forward, including the appointment of a Peer Support Worker Coordinator in March 2024.
The Coordinator will help build the peer support workforce and collaborate with our mental health serices to lead and develop the strategy.
A structure for the supervision of the expanded peer support worker network was also put in place, as well as organisational support for the peer support workers themselves.
By late February 2025, we aim to have assessed our readiness for organisational and cultural change and to have developed a recruitment guide for peer support worker positions.
Our mental health services will also continue to work with the established Royal Perth Bentley Group Lived Experience Advisory Group and relevant consumer advisory groups at Armadale Kalamunda Group.
Development of the new strategy is in line with the State Government’s Sustainable Health Review to improve mental health outcomes, the WA Mental Health Commission: Lived Experience (Peer) Workforces Framework and the Mental Health Commission’s Mental Health, Alcohol and Other Drug Workforce Strategic Framework: 2020-2025.
Messages of hope
Peer Support Worker Eliza has a strong message of hope.
Having struggled with an eating disorder, Eliza uses her experience to help others at the East Metro Eating Disorder Specialist Service.
“Often those with an eating disorder have minimal exposure to someone who has fully recovered, and that is what I am here for,” Eliza said.
“Consumers are able to ask questions about my journey and what helped me. They are able to talk to someone who understands, on a deeper level, what they have been through, and feel heard.”
Eliza said a rewarding aspect of the role was “being able to give the consumers hope that they will be able to recover and that it’s possible for everyone”.
Fellow Peer Support Worker Claire worked within our award-winning EMHS Crisis Resolution Home Treatment Team, or Kadadjiny Marr Koodjal Mia (Noongar translation).
Claire said she used her own experience of mental health to connect with people and support them.
“My journey has provided me with many skills and knowledge that I have been able to tap into,” she said.
She said it makes a difference when a person is working with someone who understands what they are going through and who provides hope that recovery is possible.
