Meet Michael Elwan,
an award-winning social worker and therapist

I'm Michael Elwan, founder and director of Lived Experience Solutions (LEXs), an Accredited Social Worker (AASW 681846), therapist, and PhD candidate in mental health. My work sits at the intersection of lived and living experience, therapy, supervision, and systems change. I support individuals, practitioners, and organisations to work more thoughtfully with complexity, with care, clarity, and integrity.

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My story

I was born in Alexandria, Egypt. I was raised by my grandparents, my first experience of unconditional love, and lost them both within a year. At fourteen, I became my father's carer after a massive stroke left him blind. He died when I was sixteen. Not long after, I cared for my mother through years of mental health challenges, until she ended her life. 

 

In my culture, grief was carried in silence. Masculinity meant endurance. Vulnerability had little language. What I now understand as trauma was, at the time, simply life.

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I came to Australia in my late twenties, on my own, with English as a second language. I built my career from the ground up, through volunteering, night shifts in residential care and youth work, and study in every spare hour. 

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What shapes my work

Those experiences shaped how I work. They taught me that pain is rarely simple, and that people are often carrying more than others can see; grief, responsibility, migration, stigma, identity, and the long afterlife of survival. They also taught me that support must be both human and rigorous, honouring lived reality without losing professional clarity. I hold both of those at once, with cultural humility and respect for each person's dignity.

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Over time, that path led me into senior management, advisory, and practice roles across mental health, suicide prevention, disability, and community services. Today, my work spans therapy, social work supervision, peer work supervision, training, consultancy, and public speaking. I also serve as a state and national advisor across multiple governance and policy groups, while continuing doctoral research on how lived and living experience can be held with dignity and integrity in leadership and organisational life.

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What I do, and why

Today my work spans therapy, supervision, consultancy, training, and advisory roles. Whether I am sitting with an individual, a leadership team, or a government agency, I am asking the same question: how do we build systems of care that people can trust?

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Through LEXs I offer therapy for individuals and couples, professional supervision for social workers and peer workers, and supervision for people leading from lived and living experience. I also work with organisations and government through consultancy, training, and keynote speaking, on multicultural mental health, suicide prevention with priority populations, and embedding lived and living experience in how services are designed and governed.

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What to expect when we work together

Sessions are unhurried and direct. As an Accredited Social Worker and therapist, I take time to understand what you are carrying and the context around it, and I am honest about what I can and cannot help with. Much of my therapy work sits with grief and loss, suicide bereavement, men's mental health, migration and identity, and the strain of caring for others. I work in English and Arabic, and everything is delivered online, so I work with people right across Australia from my base in Perth.

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You can read more about therapy at LEXs, supervision, or the consultancy and training I offer organisations.

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Qualifications and accreditation

I'm an Accredited Social Worker, the recognised professional gold standard for social workers in Australia. In practice, it means I am formally qualified, bound by a professional code of ethics, and required to keep my skills current through ongoing professional development each year. For you, it is a way of knowing that the person you are working with is a legitimate, trained practitioner who is accountable to a national professional body, not only to themselves.

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My qualifications include:

• Doctor of Philosophy (Mental Health), Charles Sturt University (in progress, expected 2028)

• Master of Social Work, University of New England (specialisation: Counselling for Loss and Grief)

• Graduate Certificate in Mental Health, Australian Catholic University

• Diploma in Psychology (Merit), Austin Peay State University

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Alongside these, I hold a Bachelor of Accounting, an MBA, and postgraduate study in organisational psychology and business leadership, which inform the consultancy and governance side of my work. I'm a full member of the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) and a member of the Australian Association for Cognitive and Behaviour Therapy (AACBT).

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Recognition

My work has been recognised nationally and in Western Australia:

• Winner, 2025 AASW National Excellence Awards, Social Worker of the Year, Australia's highest individual honour in social work

• Winner, 2026 Suicide Prevention Australia LiFE Award, Outstanding Contribution (WA)

• Winner, 2026 Suicide Prevention Australia LiFE Award, Priority Populations (WA), for LEXs

• Winner, 2026 Western Australian Multicultural Awards, Outstanding Individual Achievement

• Winner, 2025 WA Mental Health Awards, Lived Experience Impact and Inspiration

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I have also spoken at national conferences, contributed to research translation with the ALIVE National Centre, and published in peer-reviewed literature.​

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I've written about several of these recognitions on my blog.

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Advisory and governance roles

Alongside my clinical and consultancy work, I contribute to a range of state and national advisory, governance, and accreditation bodies focused on mental health, suicide prevention, professional standards, and service improvement, including:

• AHPRA Accreditation Committee

• National Lived Experience Panel, Suicide Prevention Australia

• Lifeline Australia Lived Experience Advisory Group

• Roses in the Ocean Lived Experience Advisory Group

• Co-Lead, Carer, Family and Kinship group, Lived-Experience Research Collective, ALIVE National Centre (University of Melbourne)

• WA Mental Health Commission Lived Experience Advisory Group

• Office of the Chief Psychiatrist Lived Experience Consultation Group​

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I've written about some of these appointments on my blog.

 

Why I founded LEXs

I founded LEXs to create a practice where care feels human again. LEXs is grounded in lived and living experience, cultural humility, and a deep belief in human dignity. Through therapy, supervision, training, and consultancy, I work with people and organisations to create spaces that feel safer, fairer, and more capable of holding complexity well.

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If that sounds like the kind of support, supervision, or partnership you are looking for, I would be glad to hear from you. You can book a session or get in touch.