Skin in the game: The professionalization of lived experience roles in mental health

The lived experience workforce has moved from being a grassroots support and activist movement to become the fastest growing workforce within mental health. As lived experience work becomes assimilated within mainstream mental health service delivery, it faces mounting pressure to become more professionalized. Professionalization has evoked both optimism and fear, with diverging views within the lived experience workforce. In this paper, an assessment of the existing professionalization of the lived experience workforce is undertaken by drawing on theoretical positions and indices of what constitutes a profession. The arguments for and against professionalization are explored to identify the risks, benefits, and considerations for the lived experience workforce. The drive for professionalization has largely occurred due to the clinically focused mental health systems’ valuing of professional identity. The argument in favour of professionalization is motivated by a need for credibility within the views of that system, as well as greater regulation of the workforce. However, tensions are acknowledged with concerns that professionalization to appeal to the clinically focused system may lead to erosion of the values and uniqueness of lived experience work and nullify its effectiveness as an alternative and complementary role. Given mental health nurses are increasingly colleagues and often line managers of lived experience workers, it is important at this stage of lived experience workforce development that mental health nurses understand and are able to advocate for lived experience roles as a distinct professional discipline to help avoid the risks of co-option to more dominant clinical practice.