Switchboard’s LGBTIQA+ Suicide Prevention Lived Experience Network (LEN) is a collective network for LGBTIQA+ people who have a Lived Experience of Suicide.
This presentation will share peer-led practice approaches to understanding the need for shared space and ways to create safety where LGBTIQA+ community members can speak to their experiences and context of suicide with an acknowledgement of the broader political and social context that surrounds their experiences.
The LGBTIQA+ Lived Experience Network creates community and relationship building spaces for members to hear others in community reflect similar experiences as them – sometimes for the first time. For LGBTIQA+ communities this can be paramount in supporting individuals to make meaningful contributions within the Lived Experience of Suicide sector.
A central approach to structuring safety within the Lived Experience Network is acknowledging the limited spaces LGBTIQA+ people have to connect with one another and make meaning of their experiences. For LGBTIQA+ peoples Lived Experience of suicide, institutional care, or bereavement, can carry specific challenges due to the ways our communities experience care from services, and challenges associated with help seeking and mainstream responses when receiving support.
Within the context of LGBTIQA+ Lived Experience, bringing people together holds a specific significance and the Network encourages an application of individual stories to connect with other LGBTIQA+ narratives. For LGBTIQA+ Lived Experience communities the centring of creativity, expression and writing one’s story operate as fundamental activities allows for deeper connection and shared development and understanding of advocacy opportunities to seek changes in structural settings.