Last year three Kaiarahi Wheako Ora | Lived Experience Leads were appointed to elevate the voices of people with lived experience in MHAIDS’ Local Adult Specialist Mental Health and Addiction Service’s three localities.
Sarah Porter, Leo McIntyre, and Cory Simpson are responsible for advancing person-directed care and engagement with tāngata whaiora and their whānau.
“For me, this is a dream job,” says Sarah, who is Lived Experience Lead for the Hutt Valley-Wairarapa Locality. “What gets me up in the morning is a desire to find ways to create more respectful and healing environments for people.”
Sarah’s lifelong desire to make things better is driven by her own lived experience of mental health and addiction. This has led her to a career working in a variety of service leadership, lived experience, and advocacy roles, including setting up the first peer-led and run acute alternative, Key We Way, in 2006.
She and her colleagues partner with their respective locality’s Operations Manager and Clinical Leader to identify opportunities for service improvement. Each locality team is working to deliver a plan to improve services for those who live within their localities.
“There is a huge opportunity to improve service delivery at a local level – but also more broadly,” says Sarah. “That's very exciting.” Hear more from Sarah here.
With a background in NGO and advisory roles that support service users, as well as equity advocacy, Leo McIntyre saw this role as one where “I could get involved in advancing human rights and equity in the way that we manage services.”
Based in the Wellington City Locality, Leo looks forward to services with ‘a regular, robust, and responsive process’ making ongoing improvements in line with the wishes of tāngata whaiora. He also wants to be a part of designing services that are equitable for Māori through giving effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
“Looking for improvement in practice and changes in attitudes is a positive step forward,” says Leo. “It’s important to acknowledge and appreciate the hard work and dedication that kaimahi have already shown.”
Since he and his colleagues joined the service in November 2024, they have been learning and building relationships with staff and tāngata whaiora.
“Listening to what people think is needed and applying my own knowledge to how we can implement that change is the next step,” says Leo. He has now also accepted a 12-month secondment to the role of Director of Lived Experience and Engagement for MHAIDS while Suzie Baird is on maternity leave. Hear more from Leo here.
The Lived Experience Leads have already begun to identify opportunities to advance the lived experience voice in MHAIDS services – including by creating more feedback opportunities from the people using our services.
It will be crucial to establish lived experience partnership groups in localities - “bringing together tāngata whaiora and the lived experience workforce, so we can share our stories and keep bringing them to leadership,” says Cory Simpson, who works in the Porirua-Kāpiti Locality.
Cory says he’ll be pushing for a larger peer support workforce. "I’m keen to create new pathways for people with lived experience to enter the workforce - they're so valuable and opportunities are limited.”
Cory comes to MHAIDS from the Salvation Army Bridge Programme, where he went from client, to volunteer, to recovery coach, to management-level consumer advisor.
He is enthusiastic about the potential offered by the Lived Experience Lead role. “This is a brand-new role, which comes with challenges, but it's exciting to be able to make it my own.” Hear more from Cory here.
