About us

Lifeline Lived Experience Advisory Group

Lifeline Australia recognises the varied and profound ways suicide and crisis impacts the lives of many Australians. We acknowledge the inherent value of lived experience of crisis and suicidality and are committed to ensuring that this experience meaningfully informs our work and services.

The members of the Lived Experience Advisory Group together for a group photo

Who are the Lifeline Lived Experience Advisory Group?

The Lifeline Lived Experience Advisory Group (LLEAG) was established in 2018, and provides strategic level advice on a systems-level understanding of suicide prevention, crisis support, and the needs and interests of people with lived experience, working from both personal experience and lived expertise.

This encompasses all areas of service design, implementation and evaluation of Lifeline Australia’s policy, research, advocacy, practice, marketing and fundraising.

Imbi Pyman

Since July 2018 Imbi has been a very proud member of Lifeline’s Lived Experience Advisory Group. She has three wonderful adult children, one of which suffered a life altering traumatic event that catapulted them into the mental health and legal systems. For nearly a decade now, Imbi has worked alongside her husband to passionately shed light on the difficulties and challenges their family experienced. Their intent is to improve services and give hope to others facing similar paths.

At her lowest point, which was both shocking and unexpected, Imbi reached out to Lifeline. This call, this connection, was lifesaving and brought Imbi back home safely to her family. She is forever grateful that she made that call.

In her professional capacity, Imbi works as a diversional therapist in the aged care sector. She is currently a member of the National Suicide Prevention Office LEPG, a Roses in the Ocean ambassador, has served in an advisory role for Mental Health Victoria and is helping her husband write a book about their journey.

Her appreciation for the services Lifeline provides and her passion to champion the work they do, is always front and centre and Imbi’s message is that, as humans, we are all vulnerable and Lifeline gives hope when it is hard to find.

Andrew Bacon

Andrew Bacon is a proud Yamatji man originally from the Murchison Gascoyne region of Western Australia and now based in Sydney. Andrew has lived with depression and anxiety since his teenage years and brings both lived and professional experience to his work in mental health advocacy, policy and systems change.

Through his personal journey Andrew has experienced both the challenges and the strength that come from confronting mental health struggles. Over many years he has worked to transform these experiences into purpose, using his voice to support others, advocate for better systems and contribute to meaningful change across the mental health and suicide prevention sectors.

Andrew is a member of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Lived Experience Network through the Black Dog Institute and has worked with organisations including Lifeline, RU OK, M and the Movember Foundation. He has also co-authored work on Indigenous peer workers through the Mental Health Commission of Western Australia and has served on the boards of community organisations including Friends with Dignity and Barnardos.

Professionally, Andrew currently works as National Policy Director, Indigenous at Universities Australia. He is also the Managing Director of Adina Consulting, where he works across policy, leadership and systems reform to improve outcomes for First Nations peoples.
Andrew is passionate about creating spaces where lived experience is valued and where conversations about mental health can happen openly and safely. Through speaking, advocacy and policy work he aims to help build stronger systems that support hope, recovery and cultural strength for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the wider community.

Michael Elwan

Michael Elwan is an Accredited Social Worker, therapist, and Founder of Lived Experience Solutions (LEXs), an Australian practice providing therapy, social work and peer work supervision, training, and consultancy grounded in lived and living experience, cultural humility, and human dignity.

Michael’s lived experience began in Alexandria, Egypt, where from the age of fourteen he became a carer for his father after a stroke left him blind. In the years that followed, he also supported his mother through significant mental health challenges until she later died by suicide. These experiences, alongside the loss of other loved ones to suicide, shaped his deep commitment to improving how systems respond to people in crisis and to families navigating profound distress.

After migrating to Australia in his late twenties, Michael rebuilt his life and went on to work across mental health, suicide prevention, disability, and community services. He has held senior leadership roles in large mental health organisations and now supports individuals, couples, practitioners, and organisations through his independent practice.

Michael contributes to suicide prevention through advisory roles at both state and national levels, bringing lived and living experience alongside professional expertise to conversations about policy, service design, and workforce development. His work focuses on strengthening culturally responsive approaches to suicide prevention and ensuring that systems better recognise the realities faced by individuals, families, and communities experiencing distress.

His contributions have been recognised nationally and across Western Australia, including the AASW National Excellence Award (Social Worker of the Year), the WA Mental Health Award for Lived Experience Impact and Inspiration, the WA Multicultural Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement, and the Suicide Prevention Australia LiFE Award for Outstanding Contribution.

Michael is currently completing a PhD in mental health focusing on lived and living experience leadership.

Jay Gardener

Mx Jay Gardener (they/she) lives on unceded Dharawal land. They have previously worked in designated Lived and Living Experience roles with the Illawarra Shoalhaven Suicide Prevention Collaborative, as an aftercare Peer Worker and as an advisor on projects with the NSW Mental Health Commission, LGBTQIA+ Health, Agency of Clinical Innovation, AIHW and research projects with the School of Psychology at the University of Wollongong. With a work history that spans education, events, retail, hospitality & theatre and with professional credentials in Performance, Business, Peer Work and Auslan, Jay uses these viewpoints to drive systems reform through meaningful relational practices. Jay predominantly shares from an intersectional lens of being from a working class background in rural NSW, queer, trans, neurodivergent and as a person with lived and living experience of mental health, suicide, addiction and chronic illness. Jay offers their reflections with care - conscious of the privileges they hold - in solidarity with movements for social justice.

Sonali Varma

Sonali is a public health researcher, mental health advocate, and young woman of colour with lived experience of depression and suicide.

A data analyst at the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and a research assistant at the University of Sydney, Sonali is passionate about combining data with lived expertise to improve mental health outcomes. She completed her honours degree at the Australian National University and is pursuing further study with aspirations to become a psychiatric epidemiologist.

Sonali has volunteered as a Lifeline crisis supporter and ReachOut community builder, and has since been involved in youth advocacy and lived experience storytelling through Mental Illness Education ACT, United for Global Mental Health and the ACT Child and Youth Mental Health Sector Alliance. She is also a board director for the Australian Association of Adolescent Health and the Youth Coalition of the ACT. Being part of the Lifeline community has shown Sonali the importance of connection, curiosity and empathy.

Dave Peters

Dave is based in Melbourne and has a range of jobs from guest speaking at Monash University, Melbourne University, Australian Catholic University and Swinburne University, talking to various allied health students about my experience of mental health and recovery, as well as running several workshops designed to increase awareness, normalise and encourage help seeking behaviour. Dave’s primary work is now as a research assistant at the Brotherhood of St Laurence working on a massive evaluation of the NDIS planning pathways and participant experiences.

Tim Sharp

An internationally renowned leader in the fields of Mental Health and Positive Psychology, Dr. Tim Sharp (aka Dr. Happy) is a sought-after Speaker and Facilitator, Consultant, Coach and Mentor, Writer and Podcaster.

Dr. Sharp has three degrees in psychology (including a Ph.D.) and an impressive record as an academic, clinician and coach. He established and ran one of Sydney’s most respected clinical psychology practices, a highly regarded Executive Coaching practice, and is the founder & CHO (Chief Happiness Officer) of The Happiness Institute.

He’s taught at all the major universities in NSW and has been an Adjunct Professor (in Positive Psychology) within the School of Management, Faculty of Business at UTS as well as an Adjunct Professor in the School of Health Sciences, RMIT.

Taken together, Dr. Sharp has achieved notable success in the academic, professional and business worlds, as well as in publishing, having written 7 books and recorded more than 10 audiobooks.

At the same time, however, Tim has experienced significant mental ill-health and suicidality, which has driven his passion to advocate on behalf of others who experience psychological distress, speaking publicly about his experiences in an attempt to smash the stigma.

Anne Nguyen

Anne Nguyen works in suicide prevention and as an emerging social worker based on Dharug Country. Her interest in this work grew through training as a Lifeline crisis supporter, where she became curious about the moment a person chooses to continue — when silence could take over, but the will to reach out remains.

Raised in South Western Sydney in a Vietnamese migrant family, Anne grew up navigating the space between cultures, expectations and belonging. Growing up in ‘the area’ more often spoken about than listened to, she became aware early of how place can shape opportunity, access to support, and the stories communities carry about themselves. Her work is shaped by lived experience of mental health challenges, family violence and recovery while raising her young child as a single mother.

Before moving into social work, she worked in design and communications. She now brings that perspective into suicide prevention, drawing on both lived and professional experience to contribute to conversations about how support systems can be more responsive, humane and grounded — not simply helping people survive systems, but helping shape them with greater care.