Making Room for Lived Experience

October 10 is World Mental Health Day, and this year the World Federation for Mental Health has chosen the theme “Lived Experiences Heard: Real Voices, Real Change.” For those of us who write, fund, and brief mental health messaging, it raises a practical question: whose voice is heard in the work we put into the world?

Our recent Ramp Pulse: Mental Health Communications in Canada pointed to the same question. When asked what tone or approach they find most credible in mental health messaging, more Canadians chose personal stories and lived experience than any other option, at 36.1%.

Lived experience and clinical authority each have a role

Clinical voices still matter a great deal to how people find help. In the same survey, a referral from a doctor or healthcare provider was the top factor in whether Canadians would trust a mental health resource (24.6%), yet only 10.8% said clinical or expert-backed content was the most credible tone.

My read is that clinical sources open the door, and Canadians believe people with lived experience once they walk through it. Both have a place in the work.

The strongest insight comes from bringing the people closest to an issue into the process early, in the research and in the brief, so their experience shapes the work from the start. When lived experience appears only at the end as a testimonial, the work loses much of its credibility.

Reaching people, and meeting them when they reach out

Realistically, centring lived experience only helps if the message reaches people in the first place. Our Pulse research looked at that first moment: the messaging people come across in daily life, before they’re looking for help. More than a quarter of Canadians said they don’t encounter it at all, and Baby Boomers were the least reached, at 33.9%.

Even when the messaging does reach someone, getting help is its own process. People in crisis, or ready to speak to someone, still face barriers in the system itself. CAMH’s The Maze, part of its No One Left Behind platform, addresses that moment. What I like most is that it acknowledges the elephant in the room. The responsibility doesn’t sit entirely with the person; the campaign names the systemic issues that impact them.

Naming systemic issues can be a prickly place to play. I’ve bumped up against the idea of being really transparent with people about the issues we’re facing without stepping on toes. I’ve had clients say they can’t call too much attention to this because of their relationships with government funders. CAMH has a really effective and compelling narrative.

What this asks of brand and comms folks

Bring lived experience into the brief, before the creative. When people with lived experience help shape the research questions and strategy, their perspective shapes everything that follows.

Choose the voice behind the message as carefully as the message itself. A clinical endorsement can build trust in a resource, and a personal story can make the message believable. Think about where each one belongs in your communications.

Plan for the people your channels aren’t reaching. Knowing who isn’t being reached, and what would reach them, belongs in the plan from the beginning.

Acknowledge the elephant in the room. Stigma, cost, and long waits are part of what people face when they decide to seek help. Messaging that tells people to reach out without naming what they may run into puts the full responsibility back on them.

This World Mental Health Day, I’d encourage anyone working in this space to look at where lived experience shows up in their process, and who their messaging is reaching.

If you’d like to dig into the data, you can download Ramp Pulse: Mental Health Communications in Canada or read our July post on the full findings. And if you’d like to talk through what this means for your organization, book a call!