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Lived and Living Experience Workforce ECHO

This program aims to shift traditional hierarchies by creating an accessible space where LLEW experts and increase their ability to share and provide trauma informed, compassionate, recovery-oriented, and person-led care. Each LLEW staff member comes with their own set of life experiences, expertise and strengths.  A LLEW ECHO allows LLEW staff to highlight their strengths and creates equality and integration between clinical staff and LLEW staff. 

Contact ECHO Project Manager Lisa Pearson on Lisa.Pearson@gvhealth.org.au or jacq.kiss@gvhealth.org.au (LLEW ECHO Lead) to register or discuss your initiative and ideas.

 
2nd September 2026

Theme: Contributing to Change

Topic: How do we lead change (Executive Style)

Presenter: Maggie Toko, Interim Commissioner, Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission

Resources:

7th October 2026

Theme: Journey through the LLEW

Topic: More Than a Story: Building Professional Identity as LLE – Exploring how LLE is recognised and applied as expertise in practice, and how we navigate professional identity, credibility and influence across different settings

Presenter: Dr Gabriele Byrne, LLE Role for Gambling Harm, Department of Health and from 1st July Dr Gabriele (Gabi) Byrne, Senior Adviser, Specialist, Lived and Living Experience, Gambling Harm, DH

Resources:

4th November 2026

Theme: How do I survive this?

Topic: Calling for a lifeline

Presenter: Emer Diviney, Manager, APSU-SHARC

Resources:

2nd December 2026

Theme: Royal Commission, Frameworks and Act

Topic: Our threat or our lifeline? – Managing clinicans’ perspective of LLEW and the Work We Do

Presenter: Anna Sowden- Director of LLEW, Barwon Health

Resources:

3rd February 2027

Theme: Carer

Topic: Which Lens, Whose Lens? Can I cross over and come back again?

Presenter: Ashleigh Perrin, Senior Peer Worker, Bendigo Adult Community Mental Health

Resources:

3rd March 2027

Theme: How do I survive this?

Topic: Disconnecting Without Becoming Disconnected

Presenter: Eila Lyon and Kelle Reid, The Collective/ SHARC

Resources:

7th April 2027

Theme: Journey through the LLEW

Topic: Power and Potential of Lived Experience Research

Presenter: Dr Helena Roennfeldt, Lived Experience Research, Research and Evaluation, Mind 

Resources:

5th May 2026

Theme: Royal Commission, Frameworks and Act

Topic: Forty years of peer work and now it’s called Lived -Living experience? How Harm Reduction has responded to the LLEW initiatives in Victoria 

Presenter: Sioni Crawford, CEO, Harm Reduction Victoria 

Resources:

2nd June 2027

Theme: Journey through the LLEW

Topic: When the Intersections get real! Which way do I go?

Presenter: Jules Diamond, St Vincent’s Mental Health

Resources:

7th July 2027

Theme: Evaluation

Topic: Let’s Evaluate this!! How do we evaluate the work we do? What does success even look like to us as LLEW?

Presenter: Led by Eila Lyon and Kelle Reid (The Collective/SHARC)

Resources: