Training for the conversations services often avoid

Tailored mental health and suicide prevention training for organisations, social workers and human service teams working with multicultural communities.

Mental health and suicide prevention work becomes more complex when culture, migration, masculinity, grief, family silence, stigma and help-seeking all sit in the same room. These are often the conversations services know matter, but struggle to open safely.

LEXs provides tailored training for organisations and professional groups across Australia. Training is shaped with the commissioning team and draws on lived/living experience, social work practice, applied research and case-based learning. The aim is practical: to help teams hold complex conversations with more clarity, humility and skill.

Multicultural mental health and suicide prevention training

LEXs training is designed for teams working where mental health, suicide prevention and multicultural practice intersect. This includes social workers, mental health practitioners, suicide prevention teams, settlement and multicultural services, schools, universities, community organisations, PHNs, local government, family services and human service teams.

The work goes beyond general cultural awareness. Training focuses on the practice moments where professionals may feel uncertain: how to ask about distress without closing a person down; how to recognise shame, silence and indirect communication; how migration and family roles shape help-seeking; how to respond when suicide risk is present; and how to work respectfully when culture, faith, gender and systems pressure all matter.

Training can be delivered as a webinar, workshop, conference session, half-day program, full-day program or multi-session series. Delivery is available online across Australia.

Signature training streams

These streams are the strongest fit for organisations seeking specialist multicultural mental health and suicide prevention training.

CaLD men’s mental health and suicide prevention

Men from culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) backgrounds may experience distress in ways that services do not always recognise early. Some present late. Some present only at crisis point. Others carry expectations around provision, family duty, masculinity, silence, spirituality or shame that shape whether support feels possible.

This training supports practitioners and teams to work more thoughtfully with CaLD men across mental health, suicide prevention, community, hospital, settlement, justice, family and education settings.

Depending on the audience and format, training may explore:

cultural constructions of masculinity, role expectations and help-seeking
stigma, shame, grief, spirituality and family responsibility
how underemployment, visa stress, racism and service mistrust affect presentation
indirect language, metaphor and body-based prompts in engagement
suicide prevention conversations that are respectful, direct and culturally responsive
adapting assessment and support approaches without reducing people to culture
practitioner reflection on assumptions, risk, identity and power

This stream is suited to organisations that know CaLD men are under-engaging, presenting late, or being misunderstood by services, and want practical ways to respond before crisis becomes the only point of contact.

What participants have said

Participants in Michael's national AASW training on supporting mental health in men from CaLD backgrounds have described it as insightful and well-structured, noting in particular how it helped them adjust their approach with CaLD men, including reframing silence as carrying significant meaning, and the reflective insights they intended to bring into practice.

Mental health conversations in CaLD families

Silence around mental health in CaLD families is rarely simple. It can protect people from shame, hold family dignity together, or keep painful histories out of view. It can also leave distress unnamed, widen generational distance and make help-seeking harder.

This training supports practitioners who work with CaLD families across family services, child protection, education, mental health, settlement, community and social work settings. It focuses on how to open safer mental health conversations across generations without shaming families or flattening cultural complexity.

Depending on the audience and format, training may explore:

how intergenerational and cultural dynamics shape family silence
stigma, migration histories, belonging and identity
culturally responsive questioning and reframing strategies
psychoeducation, narrative approaches and practical conversation tools
working with family roles, loyalty, grief and expectation
supporting dialogue between young people, parents, carers and kin
practitioner reflection on one intentional shift in everyday family work

This stream is suited to teams who support CaLD families and want practical tools for opening conversations that honour culture while making distress easier to name.

This stream builds on Michael’s AASW workshop, Across Generations: Practical Tools for Mental Health Conversations in CaLD Families, which focused on stigma, intergenerational silence, migration histories, identity-affirming communication and practical tools for opening safer family conversations.

Additional training areas

These areas can be included in a custom program or developed as focused sessions depending on your organisation’s needs.

Culturally responsive supervision training

This training is for supervisors, managers, team leaders and practice leads who want to build culturally responsive supervision capability across their teams.

It is different from receiving supervision with Michael. This stream teaches supervisors and leaders how to strengthen their own supervision practice when supporting workers from multicultural and CaLD backgrounds.

Training may explore:

how culture, identity and systemic barriers shape supervision
the invisible labour carried by many CaLD workers in professional settings
reflective questions that make culture visible without putting the burden on the supervisee
feedback practices that attend to identity, belonging and power
case-based supervision scenarios
practical shifts supervisors can embed in their next session

This stream is especially relevant for social work supervisors, team leaders, managers and multidisciplinary services wanting supervision to become more reflective, culturally responsive and professionally safe.

This stream draws on Michael’s AASW workshop, Supervision That Sees Me: Culturally Responsive Supervision for CaLD Social Workers, which explores how culture, identity and systemic barriers shape the supervision experience for workers from CaLD backgrounds.

Refugee, migrant and settlement-related mental health practice

Training can also be tailored for teams working with migrant, refugee and settlement-related experiences. This may suit schools, family services, settlement services, community organisations, health teams and human service providers.

Depending on the team’s context, a tailored session may explore:

migration stressors, displacement and loss
family role changes after migration
grief, uncertainty and system navigation
interpreter-mediated practice
avoiding over-pathologising distress
stigma, help-seeking and trust in services
responding when trauma, culture and practical settlement pressures overlap

This area is best developed through a scoping conversation so the training fits the community, setting and workforce involved.

Custom training shaped to your setting

LEXs training is not an off-the-shelf product. Each program is scoped with the commissioning team so the content fits your workforce, audience and purpose.

A training program may include:

a focused webinar
a 90-minute professional development session
a half-day or full-day workshop
a conference or symposium session
a multi-session training series
online delivery across Australia

The design process usually considers the audience, sector, level of practice experience, sensitivities in the topic, learning outcomes, format, case examples and any organisational context that needs to be handled carefully.

Training can be adapted for clinical, non-clinical, peer, community, social work, education, leadership or multidisciplinary audiences.

Why LEXs

LEXs training brings together lived/living experience, social work practice, applied research and systems insight.

Michael Elwan is an Accredited Social Worker and therapist, Founder and Director of Lived Experience Solutions (LEXs), and a PhD candidate in Mental Health. His training has been delivered through national professional development channels, including AASW workshops on CaLD men’s mental health, mental health conversations in CaLD families, and culturally responsive supervision.

Michael’s broader work in social work, multicultural mental health and suicide prevention has been recognised through state and national awards, including AASW Social Worker of the Year, the WA Mental Health Award for Lived Experience Impact and Inspiration, Suicide Prevention Australia LiFE Awards, and the WA Multicultural Awards.

The proof matters, but the training does not rely on biography alone. Sessions are designed around practical learning, reflective practice, real-world complexity and the needs of the people in the room.

Frequently asked questions

Can training be tailored to our organisation?

Yes. Training is shaped around your audience, setting, goals and the conversations your team needs to hold. A session for social workers will not look the same as a session for a school, community organisation, PHN, settlement service or multidisciplinary health team.

Can training support CPD requirements?

Training documentation can be provided to support CPD recording where appropriate. Some training may be developed for professional audiences such as social workers, human service practitioners, supervisors or multidisciplinary teams. Any formal CPD requirements should be discussed during scoping.

Can suicide prevention training be delivered for non-clinical staff?

Yes, with careful tailoring. Suicide prevention content should match the role, responsibility and setting of the participants. Non-clinical staff may need practical confidence in noticing concern, opening a conversation, responding safely and knowing when to escalate. Clinical or professional audiences may need deeper work around assessment, formulation, cultural context and systems response.

How is this different from general cultural awareness training?

General cultural awareness training often introduces broad concepts about culture and difference. LEXs training is more practice-focused. It looks at the conversations professionals are asked to hold in real settings: mental health, suicide prevention, family silence, help-seeking, masculinity, migration, supervision, service access and the systems that shape whether people feel safe to seek support.

The focus is on practical judgement, reflective practice and culturally responsive communication, rather than asking participants to memorise cultural facts.

Do you provide supervision training?

Yes. LEXs can provide training for supervisors, managers and practice leads who want to strengthen culturally responsive supervision capability across their teams.

If you are looking for supervision with Michael rather than training for your team, visit the LEXs social work supervision page.

How are fees set?

Training fees vary depending on the topic, preparation required, duration, format, level of customisation, and audience size. A fee can be provided after an initial enquiry and scoping conversation.

Request a training proposal

If you are considering training for your organisation, team or professional group, you do not need to have the full brief worked out before making contact.

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