Honouring the Legitimacy and Power of Shared Lived Experience in Social Work

Smith-Merry (2020) identified that the Mental Health Consumer Movement and Disability Rights advocacy have contributed substantially to elevating and validating lived experience as a genuine form of knowledge and knowing, where a person's story, and not just their health condition, is core to respectful, evidence-based policy and service delivery.Equally, approaches such as narrative, standpoint, and autoethnography highlight how situated knowledge is core to accurate understanding.It is now common for researchers to share their positioning and insider accounts of lived experience (Boveda & Annamma, 2023).Other disciplines and sectors have embraced different terminologies, for example victim and survivor testimonials and impact statements, and eye-witness accounts of past atrocities, traumatic events and disasters.These shared narratives have been vital sources of information for historical accuracy, increased understanding, legal argument, consumer justice, and compensation (Harrison et al., 2022;Stumm, 2014).For practitioners, policy makers, researchers, educators, students, and the wider public, the sharing of lived experience contributes to authentic learning.Having the opportunity to hear from those individuals with lived experiences can facilitate critically reflective insight, empathy, and respect.Listeners can bear witness to stories told, confront lived realities, and experience transformative learning.Listening to shared life events can unsettle dominant ideologies and raise awareness of shared vulnerabilities and a common humanity (Bartelds et al., 2023;Loughhead et al., 2023;Parsell et al., 2024;Roennfeldt et al., 2024).Of course, we all have lived experience of distressing crises, grief and loss, and significant life events, although not all of us disclose our experiences.Rather a personal/professional dichotomy often can prevail in social work practice (Sinclair et al., 2023).Creating a space of safety and trust has been identified as highly important when speakers are willing to share their life experiences.For those sharing lived experiences in education and practice settings, having others listen deeply to their stories can constitute an empowering act of resistance and contribute to their personal agency, sense of self-identity, and self-empowerment (Berenstain, 2016;Parsell et al., 2024).Nevertheless, we know that not all lived experience narratives are seen or heard in the same light.Those individuals telling stories from the margins can be and have been discredited and rendered invisible.Past silencing seems evident in the stories of neglect, assault, restraint, and abuse revealed during the Royal Commission