LIVED EXPERIENCE CONSULTANT
Trish is a lived experience consultant who has experience developing frameworks for lived experience engagement in the housing and homelessness sector. Trish has held several roles in the mental health and alcohol and other drugs sectors, representing the lived experience voice at all levels of the system including policy and service provision.
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Trish has been commissioned to provide 'protective behaviours' and 'story for purpose' training to the CaPAG and serve as a source of external peer support.
trish owen
community & peer advisorS
The purpose of the Comunity and Peer Advisory Group (CaPAG) is to ensure the research is guided by community members and is appropriate to community needs. This group will provide feedback on the appropriateness of research materials, provide advice regarding recruitment, interpretation of data, and co-designed recommendations.
Bubbles
Hi, my name is Bubbles. I am from Germany and my pronouns are they and them as I identify as non-binary. My life was filled with lots of lessons in the form of struggles, migrating to Australia with the bare minimum of English, addiction, mental health issues and homelessness. Having overcome all of these, and with the knowledge I have gained, I now hope to be able to help other people that are struggling with such issues. Much love and bright, bright light.
cassie
Migrating to Australia at a young age has influenced my sense of identity and I am interested in how race, gender, socioeconomic status, culture, and diversity intersect with one another. Especially as it relates to our whole of person and our connection to others. To be empowered is such a wonderful and important tool in how we navigate our circumstances and ultimately our health so if my experiences can help create the change we need for a more equitable and empathetic society - then yay! I am currently working in health but on my days off you can usually find me looking for good food, record shopping, and spending time with my dog.
Roshani was born in Nepal and migrated to Australia over 10 years ago. She currently works in the community mental health sector and is a strong believer and advocate for better access to information and services for migrants and people from culturally and linguistically diverse background, such as community support, Centrelink, and appropriate housing and accommodation.
roshani
Anania
I am a first-generation migrant – born in the Philippines, grew up in Papua New Guinea (PNG), and migrated to Darwin at 13 with my family under the independent skilled migration scheme due to the civil war/conflict in PNG – and have had to navigate mental health services in Australia as a consumer, but also have a well-informed and sound understanding of the systemic barriers facing CaLD communities when trying to engage in help-seeking as someone who has worked in the community services/public health/youth sector over the last 15 years both in Australia and overseas. I am also extremely passionate about the ‘service journey’ of young people – particularly young people from CaLD and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds – when accessing social/health services, as well as the parentification of CaLD young people and the impact this has on their developmental journey and mental health.
katarina
Katarina was born in Slovenia. Her family migrated five times. These experiences provided insights into how human resilience is tested and formed in times of great change, such as during migration. She also observed how government policies surrounding immigration and social services can affect migrant people, and their family connections, especially children and elders. Katarina is now a volunteer and community representative in the health and community services sector, applying her analytical skills to facilitating structural change in services to better equip people to manage their own health and lifestyle. Her interest is in providing outreach services to people who are vulnerable and ensuring services are accessible to those from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
activities
To date, the CaPAG have participated in an online 'meet and greet' which enabled the group to meet one another and hear about their migration journey, skills they can provide to the project and their reasons for participating in the project. The group has also recently participated in a Saturday morning session, facilitated by our lived experience consultant, Trish. Trish got the group and three members of the research team who attended the session to map their 'journey', which included highlighting migration experiences, points of housing, mental health and/or substance use stress, and also times that empowered them to make changes; discuss strategies to keep one another and themselves emotionally safe throughout the project; and to identify what skills are needed for certain components of the project and how members might contribute best to the various project components.
