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It will be a national, peer-led professional body for mental health and suicide prevention peer workers in both peer support and other designated lived experience (peer) roles. Its purpose is to strengthen recognition, rights, standards and working conditions for peer workers across Australia.

Peer workers asked Government for a strong national body that protects the fidelity of peer work, supports safe workplaces, and gives the peer workforce a united voice in national reform. The Association is being established to achieve these goals.

The Australian Government has committed $4.78M (including GST) from 31 March 2026 to 31 December 2028. This is one-off seed funding to establish and initially operate the Association. Options for long-term sustainability will be developed during this period.

The funding will support:

• Establishment of the Association

• A peer-led leadership team

• Peer-led governance arrangements for the Association

• Membership development

• A national training plan

• A supervision and quality framework

• A national scope of practice

• Workplace standards

• A career pathway resource

• An advice and referral line for peer workers

The intended outcomes from the Commonwealth grant are:

• developing the role definitions, boundaries and core functions for peer workers, considering specific roles for mental health peer workers, and suicide prevention peer workers

• developing a national supervision framework

• defining career pathways for peer workers

• developing national training pathways for peer workers

• developing workplace safety standards for peer workers

• increasing awareness of the peer worker roles (including the reduction of stigma)

supporting best practice in training and supervising peer workers.

Peer workers will lead the Association. This will commence with a Leadership Team, all of whom will be peer workers. The Leadership Team will be headed by a General Manager, and include a designated First Nations position.

The National Mental Health Consumer Alliance is facilitating establishment, in partnership with the Indigenous Australian Lived Experience Centre (IALEC) and Mental Health Carers Australia (MHCA).

Yes. Leadership roles, governance design and membership structures are centred on peer workers. The Leadership Team will include consumers, family/carer/kin and suicide prevention peer workers. The goal is to establish a member-driven, democratic organisation.

Membership will be open to:

• Current peer workers (permanent, casual, contract or consulting roles)

• People studying to become peer workers

• Former peer workers intending to return

• Peer worker alumni

There will also be a “friends of” category. This enables allies who are not lived experience (peer) workers to participate in some areas of the organisation. Volunteers who are supporting peers will be able to join as friends.

Yes. The Association includes:

• Consumer peer workers

• Family, carer and kin peer workers

• Suicide prevention peer workers

All are included within the lived experience (peer) workforces. The Association is open to people in mental health and suicide prevention lived experience (peer) roles across all sectors.

Yes. A national advice and referral service is planned to support peer workers with concerns arising from their individual roles, and concerns about systemic issues facing peer workers more broadly. This will be available via a booking system for phone based or online appointments during set hours, once the Association becomes fully operational.

The Association will begin as a distinct business unit within the Alliance. A 100% peer worker Leadership Team will run day-to-day operations. Governance will transition through a staged pathway toward a member-elected model.

An independent sustainability assessment will be conducted during the grant period. A decision about becoming a stand-alone legal entity will follow that assessment and member input.

Peer workers will be involved:

• Working at the Association, in all positions

• As members of the Association, including communicating with the Leadership Team about specific and emerging concerns impacting peer workers

• In national co-design initiatives across Association work streams

• In specialist advisory groups

• As users of the advice and referral line (ARL)

• In governance, as these arrangements develop.

Peer workers across all workforces have consistently reported:

• Lack of organisational support and leadership

• Stigma, discrimination and psychological safety issues in the workplace

• Limited access to quality peer supervision

• Unclear role delineation and boundaries

• Inconsistent training quality and access

• Low pay, casualisation of employment, and limited career pathways

• Clinical dominance and cultural resistance within services

• Feeling undervalued and misunderstood within workspaces.

The Association will be addressing these priorities, within the framework of the Commonwealth grant.