Michael Elwan Receives Suicide Prevention Australia LiFE Award for Outstanding Contribution

I’m deeply honoured to have received the Suicide Prevention Australia LiFE Award for Outstanding Contribution in Western Australia.

The LiFE Awards (Living is for Everyone) recognise individuals and organisations across Australia who are working to prevent suicide and support people experiencing suicidal distress. For more than two decades, the awards have highlighted people and initiatives trying to strengthen how our communities respond to suicide.

Receiving this recognition is meaningful, not only because of the award itself, but because of what it represents.

Suicide prevention is never the work of one person. It is the quiet, persistent work of many people across families, communities, services, and lived experience networks who care deeply about making things better for those who are struggling.

Why the Suicide Prevention Australia LiFE Award Matters

For me, suicide prevention has never been an abstract policy issue. It is deeply personal.

I grew up in Alexandria, Egypt, where caregiving and loss shaped my early life. At fourteen, I became a young carer for my father after a stroke left him blind. After he passed away, I supported my mother through years of mental health challenges until she died by suicide.

Those experiences taught me how invisible suffering can be. They also taught me how systems sometimes struggle to respond in ways that truly hold people.

When I migrated to Australia in my late twenties, I carried those experiences with me. Over time they shaped my work across mental health services, suicide prevention initiatives, and lived and living experience leadership.

From Personal Experience to Professional Work

Today, much of my work takes place through Lived Experience Solutions (LEXs), where I provide therapy, supervision, training, and consultancy.

Through this work I support individuals and couples navigating grief, burnout, trauma, and life transitions. I also provide supervision to social workers and peer workers who carry the emotional weight of supporting others.

Alongside practice, I contribute to national and state advisory work focused on improving how suicide prevention systems listen to and learn from lived and living experience.

For me, this work is about one simple idea: ensuring that people who are struggling feel seen and supported before things reach a crisis point.

A Shared Commitment

Receiving the Suicide Prevention Australia LiFE Award for Outstanding Contribution reminds me how many people across Australia are working quietly and persistently to strengthen suicide prevention.

I am grateful to Suicide Prevention Australia for recognising this work, and I remain deeply committed to continuing it alongside colleagues, communities, and people with lived and living experience across the country.

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