COORDINARE - South Eastern NSW PHN has been selected from hundreds of applications to present its work at the International Conference on Integrated Care in the United Kingdom in April 2026. 

The conference will bring together researchers, practitioners, people with lived experience, clinicians and health system leaders from the UK and around the world who are engaged in the design and delivery of integrated health and social care. 

Under the theme ‘Integrated Care for All: Promoting Health and Wellbeing Through Diversity’, the conference will explore how integrated care can respond to the needs of diverse people and communities, embrace the skills and knowledge of diverse professionals and practitioners, and develop innovative approaches that build on the strengths of people and technology. The event provides a global forum to share opportunities and challenges in integrated care and explore learning from local and national developments. 

COORDINARE will present its work on strengthening the mental health lived experience (Peer Work) workforce across South Eastern NSW, highlighting the region’s progress in embedding peer work as part of multidisciplinary approaches to care. 

COORDINARE CEO Prudence Buist said the selection was an important recognition of the region’s leadership in this space. 

"We are delighted to be acknowledged for our work to highlight the important role of Peer Workers in multidisciplinary approaches to health care and to build resilience in South Eastern NSW’s mental health lived experience workforce,” Ms Buist said.  

“While in the UK we will also be meeting with other organisations undertaking innovative work in peer work and health care, to build international partnerships for collaboration and gain new inspiration for Australia,” she said. 

Ms Buist said the region had seen significant growth in the lived experience workforce as a result of sustained investment and partnership. 

“In South Eastern NSW, peer work is no longer seen as aspirational — it is embedded and expected across services. 

“Through deliberate regional investment and collaboration, the lived experience workforce in South Eastern NSW has tripled since 2021, service delivery by Peer Workers has doubled, and access for First Nations consumers has increased five-fold.  

“These results reflect the deliberate work taking place across our region to strengthen and support the peer workforce. 

Ms Buist said Peer Workers with lived and living experience bring unique strengths to the health system. 

“They support people with care, empathy, intentional support, advocacy, and hope. Across South Eastern NSW, services are investing in career pathways for Peer Workers, and we are also building dedicated First Nations Peer networks to strengthen this vital workforce and honour the cultural strengths of local communities. 

“This transformation has only been possible through genuine partnership — with Peer Workers, commissioned services, the PHN, and the strong co-leadership of both the Illawarra Shoalhaven and Southern NSW Local Health Districts,” said Ms Buist. 

COORDINARE's Regional Peer Workforce Program Lead, Courtney Cross said: “A sustained investment in workforce capability and organisational readiness is crucial to ensure peer work is meaningfully integrated and valued in service delivery as well as organisational cultures and decision-making processes.  

“It shifts the responsibility from individual Peer Workers having to self-advocate to organisations, to holding a shared responsibility for embedding peer work principles and practices. 

"Peer work as a practice is based on shared humanity, solidarity, and hope. We want to ensure this workforce is well-supported, connected and equipped with the skills to create meaningful and enduring change in both the lives of the people they work with, and the systems and services they work within,” she said.  

In September 2025 COORDINARE's mental health lived experience workforce development program received a Highly Commended award in the Mental Health Service Awards of Australia and New Zealand. Judges described the co-design aspect of the program as excellent.  

COORDINARE’s lived experience workforce development initiative includes a regional Lived Experience (Peer Work) Framework which is the only regional strategy of its kind in Australia, formalised Regional Peer Networks, and a sustained investment in workforce capability and organisational readiness. 

More information about COORDINARE’s mental health lived experience workforce development program is available here. 

This program is supported by funding from COORDINARE – South Eastern NSW PHN through the Australian Government’s PHN Program.