Expression of Interest

Call for people to join the Experts by Experience Speakers Bureau
  • Do you have experience talking about your lived experience of mental illness or your journey of caring for someone with a mental illness?
  • Would you like to learn more skills about telling your story publically?
  • Are you passionate about change in a certain area of mental health reform and want to share your lived experience expertise with services and organisations?
This new collaborative initiative of Being and Mental Health Carers NSW seeks to link people like yourself with opportunities to participate meaningfully in changing the hearts and minds of mental health services. The initiative also aims to upskill consumers and carers to tell their story in a safe and effective way and build the capacity of the lived experience community to partner with services to make a tangible difference.
 
Being is the peak body representing consumer perspectives and Mental Health Carers NSW is the peak body recognised by NSW Health as representing mental health carers’ perspectives.

Being and Mental Health Carers NSW are often approached by services to nominate/identify people who can speak at conferences, tell their story for written or video resources or participate in committees or projects.  We are proposing to create a cohesive list of interested people who have relevant experience and skills around sharing their story and also people who would like to gain access to some resources to hone up these skills. So we are inviting interested people to fill in the attached expression of interest form.

We will not be responsible for endorsing people’s skills - we merely want to create the central list of interested consumers and carers who could be called upon when opportunities arise to share their experience in relevant forums, e.g. clinical training or conferences.

Training in presentation skills and telling your story will be available twice per year for people to attend at our offices in Woolloomooloo in Sydney. Skype facilities will be available for people living in regional areas. Training and lunch would be provided free of charge to you as a participant but it would be expected that you cover any travel costs to get to the training and your participation would be in your own time.

You will also receive regular information relating to the area of consumer and carer participation including videos, resources and other relevant training or workshops that are being held.

Please note there is no guarantee that you will be offered speaking roles through being part of the group as Being and Mental Health Carers NSW will not necessarily be able to predict what events will be held or what expertise is going to be asked for.

We hope you take the opportunity to get involved with this great collaborative initiative.

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