Lived Experience Conferences
Lived experience conferences are evolving into a global knowledge and influence network. They provide spaces where lived experience becomes a source of expertise (not just storytelling), a driver of system reform (policy, services, workforce), a connector across countries (shared learning and global standards) and a data-generating ecosystem (presentations, participation, outcomes). Together, these conferences form the early architecture of a global lived experience movement, where insights can be mapped, shared, and scaled across the world
Perspectives Conference
(Finding North Network – Australia)
The Perspectives Conference is run in Australia and brings together lived experience leaders, advocates, and speakers from across the country. Its core role is to centre lived experience voices as leaders, creating a platform where people share their stories, influence service design, and shape national conversations in mental health reform.
Stronger Together Peer Support Conference (Australia)
Held in Victoria, Australia, this conference focuses on peer support, trauma-informed care, and practitioner wellbeing. It promotes lived experience perspectives by highlighting peer-led practice, collective voice, and real-world experiences, ensuring lived experience is recognised as professional expertise within the workforce.
SMHR Conference (Australia & New Zealand)
The Society for Mental Health Research (SMHR) Conference is held across Australia and New Zealand. It plays a key role in integrating lived experience with clinical and academic knowledge, bringing together researchers, clinicians, and people with lived experience to co-produce knowledge and improve mental health systems.
International Mental Health Conference (Australia)
This major Australian conference includes dedicated streams on peer leadership and lived experience. It promotes lived experience by embedding it into program design, presentations, and leadership discussions, ensuring lived experience perspectives influence policy, research, and practice.
Preventive Mental Health Conference (Australia)
Held in Sydney, this conference explicitly centres people with lived and living experience alongside researchers and policymakers. Its role is to elevate lived experience voices in prevention, policy development, and system-wide reform, ensuring community perspectives guide mental health strategies.
Tackling Stigma Conference (Australia)
This conference focuses on reducing stigma in healthcare and society. It promotes lived experience perspectives by bringing lived experience speakers into dialogue with academics and policymakers, helping challenge systemic stigma and reshape narratives around mental health.
Construction Mental Health & Wellbeing Conference
(United States)
Based in the United States, this conference focuses on mental health in the construction industry. It uses lived experience by amplifying the voices of survivors and workers, helping shape suicide prevention, addiction recovery, and workplace wellbeing strategies grounded in real experience.
WHO Mental Health Summit: Voices of Lived Experience (South-East Asia Region)
This summit, held in Nepal and involving multiple Asian countries, is a regional initiative led by the World Health Organization. It plays a critical role in elevating lived experience into policy dialogue, contributing to rights-based frameworks, regional collaboration, and system reform across countries.
Critical Perspectives Mental Health Conference
(United Kingdom)
This UK-based conference focuses on critical and survivor-led perspectives. It promotes lived experience by positioning it as a form of expert knowledge, challenging traditional power structures in mental health and influencing research, education, and policy.
Service Users Academia Symposium (SUAS) (New Zealand)
The Service Users Academia Symposium (SUAS) is an annual, peer-led conference held in Aotearoa New Zealand, bringing together lived experience leaders, peer workers, researchers, and academic allies from across New Zealand and Australia. Originally established in 2011 by lived experience academics, the symposium was created to advance the field of “service user academia”—the meaningful inclusion of people with lived experience in mental health research, teaching, and knowledge production.
Lived Experience of Suicide Summit – Australia
The Lived Experience of Suicide Summit in Australia, led by Roses in the Ocean, is a national conference that brings together people with lived experience of suicide to share insights, build connections, and influence suicide prevention policy and practice. It supports lived experience by positioning it as essential expertise, fostering safe peer-led spaces, and embedding lived experience voices into co-design, advocacy, and system reform
Intersectional Lived Experience Conference
The Intersectional Lived Experience Conference (Australia) brings together diverse lived experience voices across mental health, disability, culture, gender, and social identity, recognising that people’s experiences are shaped by multiple, overlapping forms of identity and disadvantage. It promotes lived experience by elevating underrepresented voices, fostering inclusive dialogue, and ensuring that intersectionality informs policy, service design, and systemic reform
The HOPE Conference
The HOPE Conference is a statewide recovery and wellness conference in Maine at the Augusta Civic Centre for persons in recovery from substance abuse use and mental health challenges and service providers. It was created to help participants gain a greater understanding of what recovery and wellness looks like from the many paths and different perspectives on the journey of life.
Kansas Recovery Conference
“Bridging Generations: Every Piece Counts” emphasizes that mental health recovery thrives when all voices and experiences are valued. This year’s theme highlights the unique contributions of each generation—wisdom, fresh ideas, and a shared commitment to a supportive future.
The Power of Hope is a two-day experience centered on connection, hope, and practical tools for wellness and recovery on September 24–25, 2026. It is a hybrid event at Sourcewell in Staples, MN with a virtual option.
The Power of Hope
A.I.R Conference
The Alabama Institute for Recovery (AIR) is scheduled for April 6th, 7th, & 8th 2026 at Shocco Springs Conference Center near Talladega, Alabama. This annual event has become one of the highlights of the year for many people in Alabama. Hundreds of attendees from around the state gather for three days of education and fellowship. The conference features nationally known speakers and workshops on peer issues and interests. Social activities include a talent show, dance, karaoke, fishing, and more!
Critical Voices Network Ireland Conference
(Ireland)
The Critical Voices Network Ireland Conference, hosted by Critical Voices Network Ireland in Ireland 🇮🇪, is a national gathering of people with lived experience, activists, and allies focused on challenging traditional psychiatric systems and promoting human rights–based approaches to mental health. It promotes lived experience by amplifying survivor voices, fostering critical dialogue, and positioning lived experience as a driving force for systemic change, advocacy, and alternative approaches to care
The Perspectives (Lived Experience Storytelling Conference) in Ireland 🇮🇪 is a lived experience–led event that brings together individuals to share personal stories of mental health, recovery, and navigating services in a safe, creative, and empowering space. It promotes lived experience by using storytelling as a tool for advocacy and social change, amplifying authentic voices, reducing stigma, and influencing how mental health is understood and delivered
Perspectives
(Lived Experience Storytelling Conference)
SPHeRE Network Conference
The SPHeRE Network Conference, run by the SPHeRE Network in Ireland 🇮🇪, is an annual public health research conference that brings together PhD scholars, academics, policymakers, and practitioners to share research addressing population health challenges. It supports lived experience by encouraging public and patient involvement (PPI) in research, ensuring that lived experience perspectives help shape public health knowledge, policy, and practice
The Peer Support Flagship Lived Experience Conference in Ireland 🇮🇪, delivered by organisations such as Mental Health Ireland, is a national event focused on advancing peer support as a core component of mental health services. It promotes lived experience by highlighting peer work as professional expertise, strengthening the peer workforce, and embedding lived experience leadership into service design and delivery
Peer support Flagship Lived Experience Conferences (Ireland)
Leaders in Lived Experience Conference
(Ireland)
The Leaders in Lived Experience Conference in Ireland 🇮🇪 is a national event that brings together people with lived experience, peer leaders, and sector stakeholders to explore leadership, influence, and system change within mental health. It promotes lived experience by positioning people as leaders and decision-makers, strengthening leadership pathways, and ensuring lived experience voices shape policy, services, and the future direction of the sector
The Power of Peer Support Conference (Canada)
The Power of Peer Support Conference in Canada 🇨🇦 is a national gathering that brings together peer workers, people with lived experience, and mental health professionals to share knowledge, build skills, and strengthen the peer support movement. It promotes lived experience by recognising peer support as professional expertise, amplifying lived experience leadership, and embedding peer-led approaches into mental health systems and service design.
Asia-Pacific Mental Health and Well-Being Congress
Asia-Pacific Mental Health and Well-being Congress is a major regional conference bringing together practitioners, researchers, and advocates to explore mental health, policy, and community-based care across Asia. These events increasingly include lived experience panels, peer workforce discussions, advocacy and rights-based themes.
REMAP-D (Asia-Pacific Mental Health Equity Conferences) are conferences that explicitly include people with lived experience alongside researchers and practitioners, focusing on collaboration and system change. These are important because they integrate lived experience into research and build regional networks.
REMAP-D
(Asia-Pacific Mental Health Equity Conferences)
Global Mental Health Summit (Movement For Global Mental Health)
Global Mental Health Summit (Movement for Global Mental Health) is a major global summit hosted in Africa that explicitly includes people with lived experience as core participants, bringing together policymakers, researchers, and advocates to shape mental health systems. This is one of the strongest lived experience platforms on the continent, even though it is global in scope.
A Place of Convergence: Mental Health for All National Conference
(Canada)
The A Place of Convergence: Mental Health for All National Conference in Canada 🇨🇦 is a national gathering hosted by Mental Health Commission of Canada that brings together people with lived experience, policymakers, researchers, and service providers to collaborate on improving mental health systems. It promotes lived experience by embedding lived and living experience voices into national dialogue, co-design, and policy development, ensuring mental health reform is shaped by those directly impacted.
Recovery Capital Conference
The Recovery Capital Conference is an international conference (often held in the UK 🇬🇧 and other regions) focused on the concept of recovery capital—the personal, social, and community resources that support people in recovery from mental health challenges and substance use. It promotes lived experience by centering recovery journeys, valuing lived experience as evidence, and highlighting how relationships, community, and opportunity shape long-term recovery outcomes.
Mad Past, Made Present onference
The Mad Pasts, Mad Presents Conference is an international academic and lived experience–focused event (primarily held in the UK 🇬🇧 and Canada 🇨🇦) that explores the histories, cultures, and contemporary realities of madness through a Mad Studies lens. It promotes lived experience by centering survivor histories, amplifying present-day voices, and positioning lived experience as critical knowledge that challenges dominant psychiatric narratives and reshapes how society understands mental health
The Lived Experience Hub has identified 44 conferences held around the world that focus on lived experience voices and advocacy. While this provides a strong foundation, there are many more gatherings globally that bring people together as an international lived experience community. These conferences not only expand the knowledge base of the lived experience movement, but also create vital opportunities for connection, collaboration, and shared learning between lived experience leaders and professionals working toward common goals.
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