LEA's Annual Reports
Lived Experience Australia (LEA) is the national representative organisation for private mental health consumers, carers, families, and kin. We advocate for quality mental health services where people are partners in care planning, consulted for their expertise, and co-creators of the policies that shape their lives.
Each year’s report sets out our work in advocacy, research, capability building and partnerships, including what moved forward and what changed for the people involved.
You can read our latest report and earlier ones below.
Our 2025-2026 year was one of the busiest we have had. The Representative Panel grew past 140 members, 3,118 people completed our capability building programs, and we supported 35 research projects. We presented at the Thriving Kids Parliamentary Inquiry, contributed lived experience to the Australian Human Rights Commission’s inquiry into military sexual trauma, and took co-design into physical health, from oral health to lung cancer screening.
Our theme for the year says it plainly: lived experience is the first thought, not the afterthought.
Our 2026 Annual Report
Our Human Inspiration for Impact
Annual reports are full of data and figures. We know each figure represents a real person with experiences, beliefs and challenges. Some of those share their experiences with us, some participate in co-design, some read our newsletter and many have their own impact.
Sarah Reed joined our Oral Health & Mental Health co-design project because she believed her experiences might help create something to help others. Sarah had, for years, lived with stigma and fear which had stopped her doing anything about her teeth.
During the co-design project, Sarah was able to talk about these experiences without feeling judged, which gave her the confidence to see a dentist. “I feel more confident and equal, and much less conscious of how other people might see me.” Sarah has since applied for her dream job.
When you read our report, we hope you can see Sarah, and the many people like her, behind every figure.
A Year of Impact
Lived Experience Leadership & Advocacy
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Lived experience shapes our work from the first question to the last page. In research, advisory groups frame the questions, test the wording of surveys, help make sense of the findings and decide how they are shared.
In advocacy, our Representative Panel sits on 73 working groups and committees across government, private hospitals, professional colleges and peak bodies, including the Private Mental Health CEOs Working Group, the NDIS National Mental Health Sector Reference Group and the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Military Sexual Trauma Expert Advisory Group.
That grounding is why our submissions carry weight. They draw on what our network tells us and on the evidence we gather alongside them. LEA’s earlier research on loneliness, for example, was drawn on directly by the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Loneliness in its final report.
Standing up for a women’s only mental health ward
A WA consumer leader alerted us to an unpublicised proposal to admit male patients to two floors of Fiona Stanley Hospital’s Cockburn Health. We mobilised within a day alongside CoMHWA, the Health Consumers Council and WA advocates, and escalated the issue to the RANZCP Community Collaboration Committee. The proposal was stopped and the service stayed women-only.
Pictured (L to R): Amy-Lee Weisse, Professor Sharon Lawn
"If you had told me 12 months ago I would be travelling solo to another city that I’m unfamiliar with, navigating an airport, flights and transfers, let alone talking on stage at the APHA Congress, I would have told you absolutely not! Fast forward to today and yes!! I DID IT!!"
Amy-Lee Weisse, LEA Rep Panel Member
Research
The Evidence for Systemic Advocacy
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We know that lived and living experience is both valid and valuable on its own. Conducting our research helps us gather many stories together that help us create a bank of quantifiable data to show that it's rarely just one person - and we learn that it is often SO many - impacted by the policies that govern services provided to them. Governments cannot make policy change without evidence and our research seeks to provide as much lived and living experience to that process as possible.
It is also our opportunity to show that lived experience research is not just the answers to the questions, but the research itself being truly co-designed by lived expertise.
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LEA leading 5 and partnering on 30 research projects
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9 co-design programs implemented
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12 peer-reviewed publications completed
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Claiming Your Human Rights: a survey co-designed by 12 peer leaders, with 186 responses. About one in five respondents had insisted on their rights and never experienced a good outcome.
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Social media and anxiety, with QUT: 120 people surveyed, with Representative Panel members designing the questions and helping interpret the results
"It was a very robust discussion and privilege to hear peoples experiences. We have many recommendations come out of the discussion and this will enhance how we create opportunities for carers to collaborate with our intake teams to support consumer admissions."
Desiree Smith, National Mental Health Intake Project
Capacity & Capability Building
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LEA's capability and capacity building programs create opportunities for people with lived and living experience, clinicians, peer workers, and organisational leaders to learn, grow and lead change. Through co-designed, experiential learning, we strengthen knowledge, confidence and practical skills to improve the mental health system.
Once again this data is important for evidence and reporting, however the real impact comes from those who take this learning and put it into their work and life as they go forward.
"This learning reinforced the importance of being intentional and reflective about language in trauma-informed practice."
Participant
Partnerships & Collaboration
In our work we are always stronger together
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The value to these relationships can't be understated. The organisations we work with across government, the health sector generally, and within mental health specifically, are vital to advancing lived and living experience and expertise. We are grateful to each of these organisations for truly valuing what lived experience brings to their projects, and what they can bring to ours.
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172 strategic meetings with hospitals, colleges, universities, peak bodies, government and mental health services, up 48%
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Community Mental Health Drug and Alcohol Research Network (CMHDARN) for the Ethical Research: A Guide for CMOs and NGOs, part of our Safe Research Partnerships series
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Lung Foundation Australia and Equally Well joined us for six co-design sessions shaping lung cancer screening information for people who may face stigma in mainstream health services
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Sax Institute, for four co-design groups on the 18 and Up study
The logos below reflect just some of the major partnerships LEA has been part of in the 2025-2026 financial year.
There are so many more examples of what we do in our full report.
Growth in Reach
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17% increase in Representative Panel members, over 140
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78% increase in clinicians, peer workers and leaders in our capability building programs
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28% increase in online learning users, now 3,045
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19% increase across social media and email, now 14,567
Why does this matter?
Because the wider we can spread the word about opportunities to participate in lived experience research and co-design the more lived experience will be part of the conversations that matter.
This means more opportunities for our Representative Panel members to feel deeply valued as they contribute, and more organisations / individuals that can benefit from our webinars and online modules helping those who want to develop skills in advocacy, clinicians staff and mental health workers understanding the methods and value of engaging with lived experience, and looking after yourself.
We measure the metrics but we care far more deeply about the impacts.
