Designed with and led by people with Lived Experience
At Mind, we value and champion lived and living experience in everything we do.
We recognise the insight, resilience, and new ideas that individuals and communities with lived experience bring. And we advocate for equity, justice and people’s rights.
This approach shapes how we design, deliver and improve services.
For individuals, family, carers, kin or supporters, this means services that start with connection, choice and heart.
Embedding Lived Experience at Executive, Board and service governance levels.
Practical ways for people accessing services, families, carers and communities to shape policy, service design and improvement.
Strengthening role clarity, supervision, career pathways, professional development and wellbeing for our Lived Experience workforces at Mind and across the sector.
Designing and delivering services shaped by peer practice, relational approaches, human rights and community connection.
Building research, evaluation, frameworks and partnerships that demonstrate impact and help shift the broader mental health system
We wholeheartedly value and champion lived and living experience in all aspects of what we do. It is essential to ensure human rights and justice-informed approaches are central to how we work.
Services work best when they are shaped by people who understand mental health challenges from the inside — personally and as family, carers, kin or supporters. We look for and create opportunities for people to be involved in our workplace and across our services and communities.
Explore career opportunities
Use your lived experience in a role with skill and intention to support others and make a difference.
We are embedding Lived Experience across the organisation, with more than 270 designated roles nationwide. As a sector leader, Mind’s Peer Work Framework supports this workforce to thrive and provides an alternative model of support for people experiencing mental distress.
Join a LEAT
Our Lived Experience Advisory Teams (LEATs) give people with lived experience a direct say in how Mind operates, from strategy to service delivery. Find out how to get involved.
Stay up to date with the news and updates from Mind.
Mind Australia is deeply disappointed by the direction of public debate about mental health and the way people experiencing mental health challenges are being portrayed in our national media. We stand alongside people with lived and living experience and are concerned that public commentary risks reinforcing stigma, fear and frustration by associating mental health challenges with violence.
A new support group in Ballarat is giving men who care for someone experiencing mental health challenges an opportunity to connect, share their experiences, and talk openly about the challenges of caring for someone. The Male Carers Men's Circle was established through the Grampians Mental Health and Wellbeing Connect, with support from The Outback Mind Foundation and long-time men's circle facilitator Aaron Schultz.
Mind has launched our Lived Experience Strategy (2026–2030), reaffirming our commitment to positioning lived experience as core to who we are and central to our ambition to deliver unified, community-based and visible mental health services.
