In mid-2022, following the release of the ‘Our Futures’ report, the Victorian Department of Health commissioned the Lived and Living Experience Workforces (LLEW) Development Program. A total of 67 projects across 9 lead organisations delivered supports and structures to ensure the continued growth of LLEW within Victoria. This included four lead organisations – Self Help Addiction Resource Centre (SHARC), Harm Reduction Victoria, Centre for Mental Health Nursing (CMHN) and Tandem/Carer Lived Experience Workforce (CLEW) collaboratively developing five LLEW discipline frameworks. The five discipline frameworks are for the Alcohol and other drugs (AOD), AOD family supporter, AOD harm reduction, mental health consumer and mental health family/carer lived and living experience workforces. The final individual framework documents are all inclusive of common ground sections around values and principles, scope of practice and shared definitions, and then diverge to provide information tailored to each different discipline.

The frameworks build on the work of the National Lived Experience (Peer) Workforce Guidelines, the 2021 report – Our Future: Developing Introductory Training for the Lived and Living Experience Workforces in Victoria and the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. They add to the recognition of LLE work as distinct disciplines, decrease role confusion for LLE workers and highlight the benefits of LLE work.

In this presentation we will host an interactive conversation where the authors will share learnings around the journey of collaborating and finding common ground on this project. This involved a process of cross-sector relationship building, identifying needs upfront, and understanding and honouring points of commonality and divergence. Victoria is in a unique position following the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health system with the fast-paced roll-out of funding and expectations to invest in Lived and Living Experience Workforces (LLEW). The lead organisations have rich learnings to share following the last two years collaborating on LLEW Development Program initiatives.