About Michelle Banfield
Session title: Co-creating safe spaces: A lived experience-led partnership to evaluate safe spaces in Australia
Biography: Associate Professor Michelle Banfield is the head of Lived Experience Research at the ANU Centre for Mental Health Research, and the Lived Experience Lead for the ALIVE National Centre for Mental Health Research Translation. She has personal experience of mental illness and suicidal ideation, and over the past 17 years has led a team of lived experience researchers and students conducting mental health and suicide prevention research focused on experiential knowledge.
Key recent projects include evaluations of the role of mental health peer workers in the Australian system, a controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of a suicide prevention and help-seeking program for young men, and a project to develop guidelines for the effective involvement of people with lived experience in suicide prevention research.
Michelle is the lead investigator on the Suicide Prevention Australia Targeted Call-funded project “Co-creating safe spaces,” which includes a majority of investigators with lived experience.
Her presentation will describe the early development of the design, which will be finalised in partnership with project partners and further people with lived experience to ensure the evaluation is focused on the best outcomes for people experiencing extreme distress or crisis.
