Lived Experience
Lived experience expertise is the unique wisdom gained through directly experiencing and building a life when faced with significant life impacting challenges. While it’s true that everyone has some experiences of distress and adversity, not everyone experiences significant challenges that take their lives in an entirely new direction, such as many people with mental health challenges, social exclusion, disability, or homelessness face. Lived Experience expertise complements clinical, professional and academic knowledge in shaping services and policies, and is applied in policy development, research, service design and delivery.
Lived Experience Awareness Day
The inaugural Lived Experience Awareness day event was co-hosted by the HSE and Genio, supported by the Department of Health on 15th October 2025. Minister Mary Butler TD, Government Chief Whip, Minister for Mental Health launched the day. Speakers included lived experience experts and their allies. This event put a flag in the ground for future recognition, celebration and promotion of lived experience across our health, social and housing sectors. We hope to co-produce lots of events like this in the coming years.
The HSE Office of Mental Health Engagement and Recovery (MHER) has been at the forefront of including Lived Experience expertise through recovery initiatives, mental health engagement and workforce development. The HSE now prioritises a service improvement partnership approach, to ensure quality, rights and evidence-based delivery of health services that meet the needs of the population. The establishment of the HSE Office for Patient and Service User Engagement (PSUE) is proof of this commitment. PSUE will expand engagement to all health care domains in the coming years.
The need to acknowledge and celebrate this further integration of lived experience into systems is a growing call from people with Lived Experience.
MHER is a partner in a multi-stakeholder initiative called the Strengthening Lived Experience Programme (HSE, Housing Agency, Genio). This programme and its Lived Experience advisory group co-produced this event.
We really look forward to working with everyone to make this a reality – next year, and into the future.
Some Lived Experience perspectives from the day can be found here: The Value of Lived Experience (video)
For more information please view National Lived Experience Day Information Sheet (PDF, size 119.7 KB, 1 page)
Contact: mhengage@hse.ie
