What is a peer career?
Sometimes the people who understand a situation best are those who have lived it themselves.
Peer Workers use their lived and living experience of mental health challenges, alcohol and other drug use, suicidality, caring, or navigating services to support others. By sharing their experiences safely and purposefully, they help people feel understood, build hope, and navigate their own recovery journeys. Peer Work is more than a job. It is part of a broader lived experience movement built by people who believed that personal experiences of mental health challenges, alcohol and other drug use, suicidality and caring have value, meaning and expertise to offer others.
Today, Peer Workers are employed in a wide range of roles across mental health, healthcare, advocacy, education, research, leadership and system reform. As the profession continues to grow, so do the opportunities to build a meaningful career that creates connection, hope and positive change.
A new pathway into Peer Work
The Peer Academy is built on a simple belief, that young people with lived and living experience have something essential to offer the mental health system.
Too often, traditional pathways into the workforce don’t reflect the realities of navigating mental ill-health and it can be difficult to sustain the pace, pressure or structure of traditional tertiary education models even with passion, hard-earned insight and commitment to contribute meaningfully.
The Peer Academy is a new supported vocational pathway that helps young people aged 18-30 transform their lived and living experience of mental health challenges into meaningful careers as Peer Workers. The Peer Academy equips young people with the skills, confidence and connections to enter the peer workforce and use their experiences to create hope, connection and positive change for others.
Co-designed with young people, peer workers and service providers, the Peer Academy combines:
Join the Peer Academy
We are currently seeking expressions of interest to join the first Peer Academy group.
Your lived experience matters. The Peer Academy is designed for young people aged 18-30 to build the skills, confidence and connections needed to begin a career in Peer Work. Emerging peers will become part of a supportive community to learn alongside other young people, connect with experienced peer mentors and gain practical experience.
Whether you're curious about Peer Work or ready to pursue a career in the sector, the Peer Academy is here to help you plant the seed, grow your practice and branch out into the workforce. Submissions will close on 1 November 2026.
Become a Peer Academy mentor
The Peer Academy is seeking experienced Peer Workers and lived experience leaders who are passionate about supporting the next generation of Peer Workers.
Mentors will support participants throughout the three-month pilot program from January to May 2027.
As a mentor, you will help emerging Peer Workers build confidence, navigate new experiences, reflect on their learning, and develop their professional peer identity.
Mentoring offers a unique opportunity for mutual learning, co-reflection, self-discovery and leadership development all while investing in the future of our peer workforce.
Submit your expression of interest here
How the Peer Academy works
The Peer Academy is built on three core pillars that create a system of support:
-
Growing workforce
Build a sustainable pipeline of young people entering the peer workforce through recruitment and early engagement.
-
Maturing workforce
Equip emerging Peer Workers with the skills confidence and network connections to thrive in an evolving long-term career in peer work
-
Sustaining workforce
The Peer Academy is a home for peer workers in our region; where people enter to begin a peer career and later return as mentors, trainers and leaders, creating a lifelong alumni network and self-sustaining workforce pipeline.
Frequently asked questions
Looking for more information?
Whether you're interested in joining the Peer Academy, becoming a mentor or learning how the program works, our frequently asked questions provide answers to some of the most commonly asked questions.
Explore our frequently asked questions
Have any questions or want to get more involved?
-
Contact us
For questions about participating in the Peer Academy or becoming a peer mentor
Email Zoe Hinge, Project Coordinator, Youth Peer Workforce at COORDINARE - South eastern NSW PHN.
-
Contact us
For enquiries to host a placement, provide training or bring the Peer Academy to your region
Email Courtney Cross, Program Lead, Regional Peer Workforce at COORDINARE - South eastern NSW PHN.
-
Learn more