Lived Experience - 12-month milestone

Spectrum has proudly delivered a range of initiatives to strengthen lived experience leadership and peer-informed support for people living with personality disorder and complex trauma. 

A peer designed and facilitated 10-week program has been designed and developed by our consumer lived experience team. It is for people who are on our waitlist for treatment. 

The aim is to create a safe, welcoming space for consumers to connect, share experiences, and orient themselves to our service.  

For some, this will be the first time they’ve been part of a group of people that share their diagnosis of personality disorder or complex trauma – diagnoses that are still highly stigmatised.

This group draws on Intentional Peer Support as it’s central framework, and its design has also been informed by the work the lived colleagues at BPD Collaborative in South Australia, as well as resources developed by the lived team at the Scottish Recovery Network.

In planning this group, staff have taken inspiration from resources that were helpful in their own recovery journey, such as evidence-based approaches that use creativity to regulate the autonomic nervous system.

A workbook was developed for consumers to use as part of the program, which includes information on how to manage the challenges associated with personality disorder and complex trauma as well as creative activities. 

Our lived experience consumers have also introduced a warm call-back line, offering direct phone support from our peer workforce to improve access to compassionate, non-clinical support – reaching consumers who would otherwise have been ineligible for our service. 

In addition, over the past 12 months through a collaboration with Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network (EMPHN), our Lived Experience consumers provided specialised training for peer workers, further developing the knowledge and awareness of lived experience workforce in our region around issues of suicidal distress, complex trauma and personality disorder. 

The team also collaborated with various external organisations to help educate. They had the opportunity to deliver tailored training to Roses in the Ocean, helping to upskill their Peer Care Companion Warmline volunteers.