Author: Jacquelynne Lee

Transcript: How the Lived Experience Network members support each other

Shelly, Lived Experience Network: To be honest when you when you're looking at what a Lived Experience Network is, I think it comes down to the group of people that you have and how well-supported they feel. Because if you have a group of people who have experienced some level of trauma or some level of adversity within their lives, they need to have a level of confidence in the people who are asking questions to, about that. 

Jasmine, Lived Experience Network: I think that there was a lot of the Lived Experience Network and only two... 

Shelly: There was yeah, there was only two workers. So two people who were actually practitioners, but I think at the same time it's about choosing when you choose to do such an intensive piece of work. By the time we actually got to do the Safer Families practice guides, we knew each other, we had rapport within our Network. We knew each other, each other's yeah, each other's triggers and you know, what we needed to do to support each other. 

Jasmine: Yeah, and so that opportunity to also walk out when we needed to when it was, and to ask for that session to be paused if it needed to, and we felt safe. I think that was a big thing, we felt comfortable in the space, we felt safe, we felt listened to and you know, supported by Yasmin. 

Jamie, Lived Experience Network: There's no pressure to share everything that you've been through, but like by the end of it, all of us have pretty much opened up to each other. But to start with, each of us only knew that little, teeny bit about each other, until we started form this
group and to know each other a little bit more. And so we opened up bit by bit by bit and slowly, everybody just like came together and became the group we are now. 

Shelly: When you do lived experience and you do lived experience well, for lack of a better word, you need to recognise just how much emotion and and how much there is behind the things that we're saying. We have lived through this, and we have cried over this and we have been angry over this. And at the end of the day, yes, we want our voices heard, but we need to have that level of security within ourselves and know that if we're not OK, that we have someone to reach out to and say, 'Hey, that was really really full-on for me. I'm not OK. That was really hard for me to be open and honest and let you in and let you know just how vulnerable I was.' Because in order to have these tough conversations, we have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. And by acknowledging that and supporting that, I think you you can change how emotionally and physically taxing that is. It can take something as simple as a follow-up text message to say 'Hey, today was really tough. Are you OK?' 

Jasmine: I think that has been really good and sometimes lived experience might have a certain time frame because it is quite emotionally draining to keep talking about the hard things. So I think that does serve a purpose and a part of lived experience as well. 

Chloe, Lived Experience Network: It's totally OK to get upset, like every single one of us has had some sort of meltdown at some point during one of the sessions because there's been something that has just personally touched us and has made us, you know, have to leave the room or exit the Zoom or do whatever. And Yasmin's been really great at supporting us, but it's about being able to come back from that, I guess, and not, like the last thing that we want anyone to do is to get really traumatised by being in the Lived Experience Network, where we want people to feel like they're contributing to change that's going to help for the future. Not feel like 'oh, I've come here and shared my story and now I'm retraumatised and I'm right back where I started again.' 

Shelly: It comes down to, we become like family and family knows when you're not OK, family knows when you're bluffing. When you say, 'no no, I'm fine' and in actual reality, no, we know you haven't slept at all last night because you've had your kid in hospital because life happens outside of the Lived Experience Network as well. And acknowledging that sometimes people need to take a break from that because life has thrown a curve ball that you've not got the extra space to be able to involve, be involved in something so emotionally draining.

Jasmine: And sometimes someone saying 'this is a safe space' from someone they know is what is going to help them to actually come in and share in an honest way their, their experience and their input too. So I think we have paved the way for other lived experience people to be able to contribute and have their voice and and feel safe and heard to do that. 

Wei, Lived Experience Network: Yeah and general will have debrief afterwards, I think Yasmin basically doing that job, but also as a group we support each other, for example, I know we know each other a little better and better and better every day. So we actually knows how to support each other. Sometimes we don't need to say a word, but I feel with this kind of support system inside the group and out, we're getting better.