Lived experience workforce at Ballarat Community Health

Lived experience – the experiences of people on whom a social issue or combination of issues has had a direct impact.

BCH’s recovery-oriented approach to client services acknowledges that with the right supports, people can leave treatment and care systems to go on to live meaningful, self-determined lives. Lived experience workers play an important role in this pathway to recovery; they provide a non-clinical service but are embedded within multidisciplinary teams as specialists in:

client and community engagement
motivation and education
community connection
role modelling hope.

BCH has also invested heavily in co-design approaches to new and existing services. Co-design refers to a mindset and method for collaborating with stakeholders on the design and delivery of services. It is not just consulting with clients about a new service; it actively involves participation by clients in defining the problems to be addressed and the ways of addressing them.

Co-design recognises that a deep power imbalance exists between service providers and service users which is replicated in most conventional consultation methods. BCH’s experiences of applying co-design have taught us that workers with a lived experience of a health or social welfare issue are an essential resource in reorienting services. They demonstrate great credibility and skill in being able to engage with marginalised and underserved people, thereby providing a pathway to services.

BCH believes that genuine systemic reform can be achieved when users of those service systems have a voice in their re-design and delivery.

Our lived experience workforce

BCH’s recovery-oriented approach to client services acknowledges that with the right
supports, people can leave treatment and care systems to go on to live meaningful, self-determined lives. Lived experience workers play an important role in this pathway to recovery.

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At BCH, lived experience roles are an important resource which:

promote better health, hope and recovery
specialise in engagement, especially with underserved and marginalised groups
model professionalism and credibility as an emerging discipline.

Introducing some of our lived experience team:

MITCHELL RHOOK: Mental Health Peer Worker

My role is with the Connecting2community mental health program. We work with people who aren’t acutely unwell to identify their goals and barriers and help them work towards this goal. The main idea is for social connection and integration for the client. My role as a peer worker is important for using my lived experience in understanding the client’s struggles, as well as having firsthand experience of leaving a facility with no social connection and no idea on how to go about getting it. Lived experience gives you a unique perspective on clients.

PETER KENNEDY: Mental Health Codesign & Peer Navigator, Social Connections

I am a proud Aboriginal man from the Wotjobaluk people of the Wimmera area. In 2020, I became involved in co-designing more authentic and effective service responses for clients of the Forensic Mental Health Program in the Grampians Region. The program is now officially re-branded as Wilanila Barring (which translates to ‘changing tracks’ in the Wotjobaluk language) thanks to my role in negotiating with traditional owners and achieving endorsement to use this language. I now have a role in the Social Connections project to help connect isolated and disadvantaged people with community supports. Bringing personal experience helps us provide assistance for others going through similar situations and gives hope to others.

RICK CORNEY: Senior Peer Worker, Adult Mental Health

I am a senior mental health peer worker and use lived experience of schizophrenia to inform my practice. I work across the Forensic Mental Health and Connecting2community programs at BCH. I am a member of the Western Victoria Primary Health Network Regional Mental Health Plan Governance Group, the Centre for Mental Health Learning Governance Leadership Committee and the DHHS Lived Experience Workforce Advisory Group. In 2016 I was recognised by Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council (VMIAC) with the Victorian Consumer Worker in Community Mental Health award. In 2020 I made a witness statement to the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health Services and in 2021 I completed the Consumer Perspective Supervision – VMIAC training course, supporting my supervision of the BCH Adult Mental Health Lived Experience team. My passion for this work is driven by the belief that if I can live successfully in recovery, then with the right supports, others can too.