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Consumer-Led Conversations Recording: Multicultural Mental Health in Practice

  • Writer: Michael Elwan
    Michael Elwan
  • Jan 31
  • 2 min read

Updated: Feb 15

Award-winning social worker, national advisor, and PhD researcher Michael Elwan shares the Consumer-Led Conversations recording on multicultural mental health leadership.

I’m pleased to share the full recording of the Consumer-Led Conversations webinar, focused on consumer-led multicultural mental health and lived and living experience leadership.


This conversation brought together members of the Multicultural Affinity Group and the NDIS Participants Advisory Group, hosted by the National Mental Health Consumer Alliance. The intention was simple but significant: to create space for consumer voices to lead the discussion, rather than respond to it.


The recording reflects what happens when lived and living experience is treated as a source of knowledge rather than an afterthought. The discussion moved beyond representation and into substance; naming real tensions, shared priorities, and practical projects shaped directly by consumer insight. For multicultural mental health consumers, this kind of space remains rare and necessary. Culture, migration, language, racism, and system power are not side issues; they shape how care is experienced, accessed, and trusted.


The feedback from participants was deeply encouraging. We received 100% positive responses from survey respondents, which speaks not only to the quality of the discussion but to the appetite for consumer-led work that is grounded, thoughtful, and unapologetically complex. The Alliance team has taken care to edit the recording to support clarity and flow, and the final result holds the integrity of the conversation well.


I’m grateful to my colleagues across the Affinity Groups, and to the Alliance team, for the care, labour, and relational work that made this possible. The projects shared in this webinar are ongoing, and they matter. They are about strengthening trust, accountability, and safety across systems that have not always held multicultural communities well.


You can watch and share the full recording here:


If you work in mental health, social services, policy, or community leadership, or if you are simply interested in where consumer-led multicultural mental health is heading, I encourage you to set aside the time to watch. These conversations offer a grounded glimpse into what becomes possible when consumers lead with clarity and collective intent.


Based in Perth, WA, LEXs provides telehealth counselling across Australia for individuals, couples, and NDIS participants. Services extend to Social Work supervision, Peer Work supervision, training, and keynote speaking on men’s mental health, CaLD community wellbeing, and culturally responsive suicide prevention; helping people and organisations make mental-health care more compassionate, inclusive, and effective. LEXs provides services across Australia, supporting clients in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and beyond. To learn more about our work across Australia, visit LEXs' services page.

Michael Elwan Finalist Barbara Hocking Award 2025
LiFE Award Winner - Outstanding Contribution Individual - Michael Elwan
Michael Elwan - Award Winner - 2025 WA Mental Health Award - Lived Experience Impact & Inspiration
LiFE Award Winner - Priority Populations - LEXs
Michael Elwan - Social Worker of the year National award AASW
WA Multicultural Awards 2026- Michael Elwan Winner
Michael Elwan - Finalist - 2025 Sir Roland Wilson Leadership (WA Multicultural Awards)

Lived Experience Solutions (LEXs)
Where care feels human again

 

Lived Experience Solutions (LEXs) acknowledges the Traditional Owners and Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises their continuing connection to land, waters, culture and community. We pay our respects to Elders past and present.

 

At LEXs, lived and living experience sits at the heart of the work. I value the knowledge of individuals, families, carers and kin who navigate mental health challenges, distress and recovery, and whose expertise helps make care more human, compassionate and responsive. I am particularly committed to the wellbeing of multicultural communities, whose experiences are too often overlooked in mainstream mental health systems.

 

LEXs is committed to providing a respectful, inclusive and affirming space for people of all ages, abilities, neurotypes, cultures, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, body sizes and lived experiences.

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 000. For 24/7 crisis support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14. LEXs is not an emergency or crisis response service. A list of 24/7 crisis support lines across Australia is available here.

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