Session title – Lived Experience: Alternatives to suicide pilot, peer to peer support
Biography: Ellie has worked in the non-government mental health sector for over twenty years as a community development lead, therapeutic practitioner, manager, educator, strategy/policy worker, advisor and consultant. She combines her professional, personal and socio-political worlds, centering lived experience and a commitment to action. This is underpinned by a focus on innovation, social justice and leading together.
In 2017 Ellie founded LELAN (the Lived Experience Leadership & Advocacy Network), the peak lived experience organisation in South Australia that she leads as Executive Director. LELAN draws on the collective experiences, expertise and leadership of people with lived experience of mental distress, social issues or injustice to drive desperately needed change in the mental health and social sectors.
LELAN recently launched their work related to lived experience leadership for transformative systems change and the first model for lived experience leadership identifying the key skills, qualities and attributes of lived experience leaders. This was a partnership project with UniSA’s Suicide Prevention Research and Education Group and can be accessed via www.lelan.org.au.
A core focus for 2022 is the embedding of Alternatives to Suicide (Alt2Sui) across South Australia. An exciting initiative with financial input from both primary health networks, wellbeing SA and LELAN
