Michael Elwan
Winner, 2026 Australian Mental Health Prize
Lived Experience category
Michael Elwan
Winner, 2026 Western Australian Multicultural Awards
Outstanding Individual Achievement
Michael Elwan – Lived Experience Solutions (LEXs)
WA winner, 2026 Suicide Prevention Australia LiFE Awards
Priority Populations
COMMISSIONING OPTIONS
How can we work together?
Choose help with an organisational task or a defined contribution to an existing project. Scope, responsibilities, outputs and a fixed fee are agreed in writing before work begins. Delivery is online across Australia. Training can be included when people need to put the work into practice.
WHEN THIS IS THE RIGHT FIT
A defined engagement for a defined need
1
What consultancy is
A defined organisational engagement to develop, review or put an agreed strategy, framework, structure or way of working into practice.
2
When tailored work is appropriate
When you need a new approach, support applying an existing framework, clearer advisory arrangements or a defined contribution to a wider project.
3
What an organisation can commission
Strategy and framework development
Develop or refresh an organisational strategy or framework, with agreed priorities, responsibilities and actions. This may include a defined lived and living experience or multicultural contribution to suicide prevention or postvention work. Specialist and local responsibilities are agreed for each brief.
Workforce and governance reviews
Examine lived experience roles, advisory groups, reporting relationships, support and how advice reaches decisions.
Co-design and co-creation
Design and facilitate participation around a defined purpose, including culturally responsive approaches and clarity about what people can influence.
Research and evaluation
Bring lived and living experience and multicultural perspectives to agreed parts of research design, participation, interpretation and communication.
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Policy, standards and service design
Review or develop documents and arrangements so their purpose, responsibilities and practical implications are clear.
Implementation support
Help an organisation act on a defined issue through agreed changes to roles, governance, processes or capability. The scope and output are agreed before work begins.
4
Know it, change it, sustain it
An engagement can begin with an existing policy, advisory structure, service, resource or research question. Where an independent review is needed, it can help clarify what should change. Where the need is already defined, consultancy or training can begin directly.
Research translation with lived experience
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Through the LIFEWAYS project, I wrote the research summary and lived experience reflection, Does suicide risk among Australian men differ by ethnicity?, published by Life in Mind in August 2026. The work brought research findings and lived experience interpretation together for readers interested in multicultural mental health and suicide prevention.
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​I also contributed to A Guide to Communicating Research in Plain Language, developed by Everymind and Roses in the Ocean through the LIFEWAYS project and published in 2026.
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Read the published research summary.
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Selected work
Supporting Refugees and People Seeking Asylum in Distress, Everymind
I contributed as an Advisory Group member and provided user-testing feedback for this released workforce learning resource for NSW community and health workers.
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​Through my ALIVE Co-Lead, Carer, Family and Kinship Group role, I helped run Emergent Ecosystems alongside fellow co-leads on 24 September 2026. The event brought together four networks and 57 participants online and in person.
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​Professional recognition: winner, 2026 Australian Mental Health Prize, Lived Experience category; 2025 AASW Social Worker of the Year.
Testimonials