Lived and living experience practitioners – people whose expertise is rooted in their own journeys through mental health challenges – are essential to building compassionate, inclusive and recovery‑focused mental health systems. Their presence in decision-making helps humanize services, strengthen trust and collaboration, and bring lived reality into policy and practice.
To advance this work across the Region, WHO/Europe is supporting Member States in implementing the “Roadmap for integrating lived and living experience practitioners into policy, services and communities”, published in June 2025.
Background
The Roadmap was co‑created with people with lived experience expertise, Mental Health Europe and the Health Service Executive of Ireland. It was funded through WHO/Europe’s contribution agreement with the European Commission, through the “Addressing mental health challenges in the European Union, Iceland and Norway” project.
It sets out a structured, 6‑action framework for embedding lived/living experience roles within mental health systems and the wider workforce. Drawing on case studies from across Europe, it offers practical guidance for policy‑makers, service providers, advocates, lived/living experience workers and service users seeking to advance rights‑based, recovery‑oriented approaches.
About the workshops
As part of the next steps in supporting national implementation, WHO/Europe will convene 2 regional capacity‑building workshops on 17–19 March and 30 June–2 July 2026.
These sessions will help countries strengthen their organizational and system-level readiness to meaningfully integrate lived and living experience practitioners into mental health services. Through expert inputs, collaborative learning, group work and practical exercises, participants will:
- examine the 6 action areas of the Roadmap in depth;
- take stock of the current level of lived/living experience integration in their national context;
- explore workable strategies for embedding lived/living experience roles within multidisciplinary teams and service structures; and
- develop a tailored, realistic implementation plan aligned with their system’s needs and opportunities.