Become a trained volunteer

Share your story to educate our community on mental health and well-being.

The more we talk about mental illness, the less stigmatised it will become.

At the very core of everything we do are powerful lived experience stories of mental illness. Educators are volunteers who share their personal stories along with evidence-based content in schools and workplaces across the ACT and region.

Becoming a volunteer is a rewarding experience on your recovery journey and it gives you the opportunity to help others to learn from your own experiences and address stigma in our community.

To become a volunteer Educator you will need:

  1. To be positively managing your mental illness, or be the carer of a person who is living with mental illness.
  2. Hold or be willing to obtain a Working with Vulnerable People Card
  3. Be able to work with other volunteer storytellers and presenters, MIEACT staff and the host of the session (which may be a school or workplace staff member)
  4. Complete Educator training. This involves being able to share your unique personal experiences of mental illness or as a carer.

Our volunteers are required to complete training to ensure that when they present their personal stories, they are not going to trigger a vulnerable person in their audience, nor themselves.

Volunteer Training Steps

Expression of interest

Start by completing your expression of interest to became a Volunteer Educator.

Expression of interest

Start by completing your expression of interest to became a Volunteer Educator.

Information session

Attend a session where we will take you through the who, why and what of MIEACT and what is involved in volunteering with us.

DoNOHarm Training

At the core of what we do is our safe story-telling framework, a best practice approach to communicating about the lived experience.

Story crafting

Start to put your story together guided by the DoNoHarm framework.

Facilitator training

Learn evidence-based educational content to present with your story.

Pilot

Observe sessions live with local schools and learn from current Educators on their experiences. You may also consider completing a digital story at this point.

Upskill

You will receive ongoing support in your role as a Volunteer Educator and expand into other programs of delivery.

Volunteer

Volunteer EOI

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