Experts by experience provide valuable input through their involvement in feeding back on services and sharing views on future service plans, as well as participating in staff recruitment panels and patient experience groups.
Our expert by experience programme
Our expert by experience programme is a series of workshops for people to gain skills to get involved in a range of participation activities. If you're interested in actively getting involved to help improve mental health services, this could be the workshop for you.
The workshops are an opportunity to recognise and build upon your skills and knowledge. They cover recruitment, getting involved in meetings and quality visits to services. You will also be invited to sign up to our expert by experience mailing list to hear about upcoming opportunities.
Sessions are open to service users, past and present, as well as their family, friends and carers. The course explores how to communicate your personal experiences in a way that can create meaningful change to services and support you on your recovery journey.
Why is our expert by experience programme so important?
Sussex Partnership is committed to being an organisation that puts the involvement and experience of people using our services and their families, friends and carers at the heart of anything that we do.
Working in this way means that we deliver compassionate and responsive care that is aligned to people’s feedback, and will mean that our organisational decisions and processes are enriched and enhanced by the inclusion of the lived experience perspective.
Watch this video to find out more about becoming an expert by experience at Sussex Partnership.
How to become an expert by experience
We value you, your input and your time, which is why all of our expert by experience roles are paid opportunities.
If you are a current or former service user and/or carer of Sussex Partnership and would like to share your knowledge of our services, the first step is to register an interest with our People Participation Team. Please email participation
A member of the team will reach out to you with information about the programme and signpost you to our participation workshop – an expert by experience induction course facilitated by the team.
Upon completion of the course, you will be registered as a new expert by experience and subscribed to our participation opportunities mailing list. From here you will be kept informed of the opportunities available to you within the Trust.
You can then apply for roles, with support from the People Participation Team.