Allyship with people with lived experience

heard? Is it safe for them? Do they have position power and influence? Don’t leave all the influencing work to people with lived experience – they need your visible support.

5 Call out exclusion and discrimination

All of us were brought up with some negative attitudes towards people with mental distress, AOD related harm and sometimes their families. We need to acknowledge our own prejudices and biases to move beyond them. Allies also need to address intersectional experiences of marginalisation, which are common among people with mental distress and AOD related harm. If you come across exclusion and discrimination don’t just leave it to people with lived experience to call it out. Point it out in the moment if possible. Work with people with lived experience to develop responses. Never say ‘I’m sorry that exclusion or discrimination happened to you’ and walk away.

6. Create opportunities for development

And Leadership

Within your sphere of influence, ensure that colleagues with lived experience are growing in their numbers and influence. Give them opportunities to lead through agenda setting, chairing, managing projects and senior leadership positions. Ensure they are paid fairly for their time, can access peer-led supervision and support and have opportunities for professional development.

7. Build a community of allies

As allies you will be more influential if you work together. Create spaces with other allies to support each other, to discuss the complexities of allyship and any issues you feel you can’t safely or appropriately address with people with lived experience. Issues may include how you understand and respond to criticism and hostility, and how you change yourselves and the way you engage rather than change the people you are allies with. Allies often struggle with the fear of getting it wrong – of not speaking up, or of drowning out the voices of the marginalised, of losing their trust or the trust of bosses and others who share their privilege. Use your collective wisdom to develop a knowledge base and resources to encourage good allyship in others.

Summary

Good allies, no matter where they are placed in the system, have been essential to the development of lived experience leadership and partnerships for the last thirty years. We could not have made nearly as much progress without them. All good allies share the ability and commitment to ask, listen, show up and speak up.

1. Take on the struggle as your own

2. Stand up even when you feel scared

3. Transfer the benefits of your privilege to those who lack it

4. Acknowledge that while you too feel pain the conversation is not about you.”

– Unknown

Further reading and viewing Mental health

Caroline Lambert, Ronnie Egan & Stuart DM Thomas (2021): What does effective allyship between social work and lived experience workers look like in the Australian forensic mental health context?, Qualitative Research in Psychology, DO I:10.1080/14780887.2020.1869357

Cameron Moss, Terri Warner, Brenda Happell & Brett Scholz (2021) Motivations for allyship with mental health consumer movements, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 18:4, 601618, DOI: 10.1080/14780887.2020.1718814

Way Ahead, How to be a Mental Health Ally. https://mentalhealthmonth.wayahead. org.au/how-to-be-a-mental-healthally/. Retrieved 25 January 2023.

General Harvard Business Review, Be a Better Ally. https://hbr.org/2020/11/be-a-better-ally. Retrieved 25 January 2023.

Lean In, What is Allyship? https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=EJW3wjy9gSI. Retrieved 25 January 2023.

Lean In, Allyship in Practice. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=f3f_pHYo2rM.

Retrieved 25 January 2023.

Ted Talks, Melinda Epler. 3 ways to be a better ally in the workplace. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=k12jE1LsUU . Retrieved 25 January 2023.

Melinda Epler, How to be an Ally: Actions you can take for a stronger, happier workplace: McGraw Hill, 2021.

About the author

Mary O’Hagan was a key initiator of the psychiatric survivor movement in New Zealand in the late 1980s and was the first chairperson of the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry between 1991 and 1995. She has been an advisor to the United Nations and the World Health Organization. She has written an award-winning memoir called ‘Madness Made Me’ and was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2015. Mary is currently Executive Director, Lived Experience Branch in the Mental Health and Wellbeing Division at the Department of Health Victoria. All Mary’s work has been driven by her quest for social justice for one of the most marginalised groups in our communities.