Michael Elwan Joins the National Mental Health Workforce Advisory Network

Some invitations mark a quiet turning point; this one does. I have joined the National Mental Health Workforce Advisory Network, a national forum created to support the implementation of Australia’s National Mental Health Workforce Strategy 2022–2032. It is a long-term effort to strengthen, stabilise, and future-proof the people who hold our mental-health system together.

The network sits alongside the National Mental Health Workforce Sector Advisory Group and works closely with the National Mental Health Workforce Working Group. This Working Group brings together the Commonwealth, all states and territories, policy leads, lived experience voices, and First Nations representatives. Their task is ambitious; to shape a workforce that is capable, culturally responsive, better connected, and better supported.

Joining the Advisory Network matters because it widens the table. It brings together people from many corners of the sector; including clinicians, educators, researchers, allies, lived experience practitioners, community advocates, and cultural specialists. Each of us contributes insights that help refine reform directions, signal gaps, and ground workforce policy in real-world need.

For me, this work ties directly to a long-standing commitment: transforming Australia’s multicultural mental health landscape through lived experience leadership, cultural humility, and practical systems change. Workforce issues are often where the deeper questions show themselves; who is welcomed into the field, how culturally safe environments are built, whether lived experience roles are genuinely supported, and how communities from migrant and refugee backgrounds are represented in decision-making.

Serving in the Advisory Network is an opportunity to carry those questions into a national conversation. It is also a chance to amplify the needs of multicultural practitioners, community leaders, and people whose stories sit at the intersection of migration, trauma, identity, and healing.

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.