Subject: Welcome to the AAPW Mailing List
Dear colleagues,
Thank you for signing up to stay connected with the Australian Association for Peer Workers (AAPW).
Your support at this early stage means a great deal. We have had 296 people sign up within our first week! The establishment of a national association for mental health and suicide prevention peer workers is a significant milestone for the peer workforce in Australia, and we are excited to have you alongside us as this work begins.
AAPW is being established as a national, member-based organisation for peer workers in mental health and suicide prevention. At its heart, the Association is about creating a strong, collective voice for the peer workforce, one that is informed, led, and shaped by lived experience. In these first two and a half years, we are being hosted by the National Mental Health Consumer Alliance and established as a separate operational unit. After that we intend to spread our wings and transition to an independent entity, led and governed by peer workers.
Together, we have an opportunity to elevate the national voice of peer workers and strengthen recognition of peer work as an essential and critical component of Australia’s mental health and suicide prevention systems. AAPW will be a platform for the collective voice of peer workers nationally, helping to shape the services and systems within which we work, and advocating for peer-led approaches, centring lived experience, and human rights.
AAPW is still in its infancy, and our next steps include recruiting the Association’s peer team, building an online presence and creating meaningful ways to connect with peer workers nationally. In the coming months, we will invite people to formally sign up as members of the Association.
Membership will be free for the first 12 months while we work towards developing an affordable and sustainable membership structure for the future.
There will be many opportunities to get involved through forums, consultations, working groups, and co-design activities. We are particularly keen to hear about your experiences as a peer worker, your hopes for the future of the workforce, and your ideas for how we can collectively elevate peer work across Australia. You’re welcome to email us directly at admin@aapw.org.au
We’ll be in touch regularly over the coming months.Thank you again for your support and interest. We look forward to building this together.
Warm regards,
The Australian Association for Peer Workers (AAPW) Project Team
