Online Lived Experience Leadership Supervision Australia

Senior lived experience practice carries a particular kind of weight. The labour of being the lived experience voice at executive tables, the strategic question of when and how disclosure helps the work and when it does not, the loneliness of sitting above the peer workforce in a system that often has no peer leadership infrastructure above you, the ongoing toll of representational labour in rooms otherwise full of clinicians, managers, and policy makers. This is distinct work, and it requires distinct supervision.

Online Lived Experience Leadership Supervision at LEXs offers a reflective, non-hierarchical space shaped specifically for senior lived and living experience practice. Sessions are delivered via secure telehealth across Australia, individually, and informed by both senior practice experience and doctoral research on lived experience leadership.

Who This Supervision Is For

This supervision is suited to lived and living experience practitioners working in senior roles and senior-equivalent practice. It is designed for:

• Lived experience leaders in senior management roles in mental health, suicide prevention, AOD, and community services

• Lived experience researchers, particularly those using lived experience methodologies or working on lived experience workforce questions

• Lived and living experience advisors and consultants holding formal advisory or consultancy appointments

• Board members and governance representatives drawing on lived experience in their role

• Senior consumer and carer representatives at organisational, state, and national levels

• Lived experience practitioners running consultancies, independent advisory practices, or lived experience-led services as senior operators

• Lived experience leaders in policy, peak bodies, and government settings

• Practitioners holding hybrid senior roles where lived experience intersects with executive, academic, or governance responsibilities

• This service is also suitable for lived experience workforce members in a defined transition into senior practice: currently acting in a senior role, formally appointed to an advisory or consultancy contract, or completing a higher research degree. This service is shaped around current senior practice rather than general career mentoring or aspirational reflection. Practitioners not yet in senior or transitional roles are warmly directed to the Online Peer Work Supervision service, which is shaped for designated peer practice and emerging leadership

If you are in a designated peer worker role rather than a senior or senior-equivalent role, the Online Peer Work Supervision service is the right fit for your practice.

What Supervision at LEXs Actually Involves

Sessions are 60 minutes, delivered on a secure, encrypted telehealth platform. The approach is non-hierarchical and shaped to the live decisions of senior practice. You bring the work, the supervision follows from there.

Content of any given session might include:

• Strategic decision-making at the intersection of lived experience values and organisational, sector, or system pressures

• The toll of representational labour and the question of how to sustain it across years of senior practice

• Working with the politics of being the lived experience voice in rooms otherwise structured around clinical, managerial, or policy authority

• The strategic deployment of lived experience disclosure: when it serves the work, when it does not, and the cost of either

• Navigating co-option, tokenism, and the structural pressures that pull senior lived experience practice toward becoming a credential rather than a practice

• Working with funders, commissioners, boards, and government in ways that preserve lived experience integrity

• The personal sustainability of leadership work that draws heavily on lived experience

• The professional and ethical questions specific to senior lived experience practice, including the relationship to the peer workforce below you and the systems above you

• Transitions: into senior roles, between senior roles, out of designated lived experience positions into hybrid or strategic ones, and into independent practice and consultancy

• Celebrating growth, naming strengths, and planning the longer arc of senior lived experience leadership

Supervision here takes the specific demands of senior lived experience practice seriously. It does not require you to translate your work into clinical or managerial frameworks to make it legible.

A Distinct Service from Peer Work Supervision and Social Work Supervision

This service is deliberately separate from peer work supervision and social work supervision because the work is different. Peer work supervision is grounded in the National Lived Experience (Peer) Workforce Development Guidelines (Byrne et al., 2021) and is shaped around designated peer practice. Social work supervision is aligned with the AASW Supervision Standards and shaped around social work practice. Lived Experience Leadership Supervision sits in a different territory: senior practice that draws on lived experience as a knowledge base while operating at a strategic, advisory, governance, or consultancy level.

This service is informed by the leadership and sustainability sections of the National Lived Experience (Peer) Workforce Development Guidelines, by ongoing doctoral research on organisational support mechanisms for lived experience leadership, and by reflective and restorative supervision frameworks adapted for senior practice.

Supervision for Lived Experience Consultants and Advisors in Independent Practice

A growing number of lived experience practitioners operate as senior consultants, advisors, and independent operators outside organisational employment. The supervision needs of this work are specific: contracting and commissioning ethics, navigating the commercial arrangements of consultancy without losing lived experience integrity, sustaining values-led practice in a fee-for-service model, the isolation of senior practice without organisational infrastructure, and the strategic decisions about which work to take and which to decline.

Supervision at LEXs is informed by the experience of building LEXs as a lived experience-led independent practice, alongside the senior management experience that preceded it.

Fees and Booking

Single sessions and a prepaid package are available. The pricing reflects the scarcity and specificity of senior lived experience leadership supervision in Australia.

Single sessions

Lived Experience Leadership Supervision (60 minutes): $360

Prepaid package

Lived Experience Leadership Supervision Package: 6 sessions × 60 minutes, prepaid, $2,160 (equivalent to $360 per session). The package signals commitment and protects continuity over a 12-month engagement. Designed for organisational executive support contracts, advisory and consultancy appointments, and senior practitioners committing to a sustained supervision relationship.

Package terms

• Prepaid in full at the time of booking

• Non-refundable

• Valid 12 months from first session

• Sessions not used within the validity window are forfeited

• Sessions are transferable to other LEXs supervision services at the supervisor's discretion if circumstances change materially

  
  

For organisational buyers, invoicing and written service agreements are available. Documentation of supervision can be provided to support executive support records, advisory appointment requirements, or contract reporting.

Group supervision for established peer clusters of senior lived experience practitioners can be arranged by enquiry; please contact me to discuss.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is this supervision different from peer work supervision?

Peer work supervision is shaped around designated peer practice, frontline and team-based peer work, and the National Lived Experience (Peer) Workforce Development Guidelines. Lived Experience Leadership Supervision is shaped around senior practice: management, advisory, consultancy, research, and governance roles where lived experience is integral but the practice is not designated peer work. Some practitioners use both at different points in their career.

Is this service suitable for lived experience researchers?

Yes. Lived experience researchers, particularly those working with lived experience methodologies, on peer workforce questions, or in mental health and suicide prevention, are an explicit audience for this service. The supervisor's doctoral research focuses on organisational support for lived experience leadership, and supervision can engage the epistemic and political questions that lived experience research raises.

Is this service suitable for board members and senior consumer or carer representatives?

Yes. Board members, governance representatives, and senior consumer and carer representatives at organisational, state, and national levels are an explicit audience. The work of holding lived experience authority in governance contexts is a specific practice with specific supervision needs.

Can my employer or contract holder fund this supervision?

In many cases, yes. Senior lived experience supervision is increasingly funded by organisations as part of executive support, by state government departments as part of advisory appointments, and by health services as part of senior staff support. I am happy to provide documentation, invoicing, and written service agreements to support that arrangement.

Can this supervision be tax deductible for independent consultants and advisors?

For self-employed consultants and advisors, professional supervision is generally tax-deductible as a work-related expense. Best confirmed with your accountant or the ATO for your specific situation.

How to Begin

Single sessions and the prepaid package are described in the Fees and Booking section above. To begin, view available options and book.