A Strategy Centred on Lived Experience
This strategy focuses on a major shift in mental health governance by placing people with lived experience at the center of decision-making.
Who People with Lived Experience Are:
People with lived experience include those who have personally dealt with mental health challenges or have supported someone through such challenges. This group encompasses individuals who have navigated mental health services, experienced periods of healing and recovery, and includes family members, caregivers, and frontline workers. Their diverse experiences and insights are invaluable for shaping a more inclusive and effective mental health system.
Why Lived Experience Matters:
Incorporating lived experience into governance means those affected by mental health policies help shape them. This approach ensures policies are relevant and empowers those with lived experience to have a direct impact on the services they use.
Real Understanding: People with lived experience know firsthand what works and what doesn’t in mental health care. Their insights make strategies and services more effective.
Better Decisions: Including these voices in decision-making leads to more informed and compassionate policies, services, and programs that effectively meet the needs of those impacted.
Building Trust: By involving people with lived experience, organizations show they value and understand community needs, building trust and credibility.
Stronger Collaboration: Engaging individuals with lived experience fosters better partnerships between service providers and communities, resulting in more comprehensive mental health supports and services.
Lived Experience Insights
In developing this strategy, individuals with Lived Experience identified three key areas where the current health care system has the potential for significant improvement.
These insights (Problems A,B, & C below) also provide key guideposts for the development of a new system for Community Mental Health and help define where community could support transitions in and out of clinical treatment.
PROBLEM A
Current Mental Health Services Focus on the Needs of Organizations, Not the Needs of People
The current health care system is designed more around the needs of organizations rather than the people they serve. This means that the voices and experiences of those directly affected by mental health issues are often not included in the decision- making process. As a result, the system may not fully address the real needs of individuals seeking help.
People with lived experience know best how the services they use meet their needs. They should have a greater role in shaping mental health services and policies to ensure they are more effective and person-centered.
“Understanding lived experience would help frame both the struggles of the community and the incredible resilience and strengths of individuals and families which can be accessed for healing and general well-being.”
“We know our communities best.”
“People who have worked for more than 10 or 20 years have developed wisdom born from their experience. They are figuring it out as they go along with the people that they are working with.”
PROBLEM B
The Current System Creates Barriers to Access
Current mental health supports in the health care system are biased towards a medical model of mental health, which can create barriers for many people, especially those from diverse cultural backgrounds. Since mental health services are often based on Western worldviews, they may not be relevant or accessible to everyone. This can prevent people from seeking help or even recognizing their own mental health needs.
To be more effective, mental health supports need to incorporate diverse perspectives and practices, such as the concept of ‘Two-Eyed
Seeing,’ which values both Indigenous and Western knowledge. This approach ensures that all individuals feel understood and supported when accessing services.
“We might have somatic experiences of mental health without the language to say this is anxiety, [or] depression.”
“The current dominant mental health approach and structure is highly influenced through a Western and medical lens limiting reach and scope of effectiveness as well as meaningfulness in ethnocultural communities.”
PROBLEM C
The Current System Fragments Mental Health Services and Supports
The current health care system is fragmented, isolating services and supports that would be more effective if integrated. This separation creates barriers for individuals seeking help, as their needs often span multiple areas like housing, addiction treatment, cultural connection, and financial security. The current framework not only isolates mental health providers from each other but also from other organizations that play a crucial role in supporting people to be well in community. This lack of coordination leads to gaps in care, missed opportunities for collaboration, and an uneven distribution of resources, particularly in underserved areas.
A more integrated, holistic approach is needed, where mental health services work in close partnership with other sectors, recognizing the interconnectedness of well-being. This would involve valuing and including organizations and individuals not traditionally considered part of the mental health ecosystem but who contribute significantly to recovery, wellness, and resilience.
Recovery-based approaches recognize that everyone has the potential to thrive, including people living with mental illness and/or addiction. The goal of recovery-based mental health and addiction services is to support individuals and their caregivers to realize this potential through providing support in ways that maximize choice, dignity, capacity, and resilience.
“We rarely see the request for actual clinical [mental health] support. The clients’ priorities are in assistance with their daily needs. That is what influences their mental health.”
“The plea is to look at this challenge as a part of society broadly and the impacts of trauma. Transgenarational trauma, poverty, and racism - this combination of factors is complex.”
Community mental health considers individuals from a holistic perspective, acknowledging the full range of what people need to thrive.