Addressing the training needs of the lived experience workforce: Sector innovation

The consumer, peer support, and lived experience (CPSLE) workforce is a significant and growing component of Aotearoa New Zealand’s mental health and addiction workforce. A clear, shared and consistent understanding of the values and skills required for effective CPSLE work supports the ongoing growth and development of this workforce. The CPSLE competencies provide a description of these values and skills.

The CPSLE competencies were developed collaboratively with the CPSLE workforce and can be drawn upon to guide workforce development including training and professional development. A training needs analysis of the CPSLE workforce undertaken in 2022 identified a number of training gaps for the CPSLE workforce.

Two organisations have taken the opportunity to innovate to meet these training needs. Pathways have developed a training package, ‘Kia Mataara’, for their peer workers, and Odyssey have developed ‘Peer 101’, an introduction to peer support that is available externally as well as to their own peer staff from ‘Taupae Wheako’ the Centre for Lived Experience Peer Support and Social Recovery (www.odyssey.org.nz/taupaewheako). Both of these training programmes have been built from the CPSLE competencies and demonstrate a unique and tailored response to the needs of the Aotearoa New Zealand CPSLE workforce.