Mental health challenges are a "concealable stigma" — not always apparent to others — and stigma beliefs expressed by mental health workers discourage colleagues, including those in designated Lived Experience roles, from sharing their own experiences. Fear of stigma and discrimination may also discourage staff currently experiencing mental health challenges from seeking support and workplace accommodations. The false distinction between "helper" and "helped", or professional and consumer, can further limit access to support for workers in non-designated roles, who may feel pressure to play the part of the "invulnerable professional". The brief argues that mental health services should actively challenge these traditional professional imperatives of invulnerability and strict boundaries around sharing.
Reducing the Impact of Mental Health Stigma in Mental Health Workplaces
Overview
This implementation brief from The ALIVE National Centre for Mental Health Research Translation is part of a five-part series on stigma and its impacts. It examines how mental health stigma and discrimination operate within mental health workplaces, affecting both staff in designated Lived Experience roles and staff in non-designated roles who may be experiencing their own mental health challenges. The brief explores how stigma discourages the safe sharing of lived experience and help-seeking among workers, and how this in turn affects the safety and quality of mental health services. It provides pathways to scalability for mental health service organisations seeking to build mentally healthy, inclusive workplaces and to integrate support for safe sharing into existing stigma reduction activities.
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Key insights
This implementation brief, part of a five-part series on stigma and its impacts, examines stigma and discrimination within mental health workplaces and its consequences for both staff and the service users they support. It highlights how mental health challenges function as a "concealable stigma" that discourages disclosure among staff — including those in designated Lived Experience roles — and how the false distinction between "helper" and "helped" can prevent workers in non-designated roles from seeking support. The brief frames mental health workplaces as a priority setting due to the flow-on effects of workplace culture on service quality, and provides implementation pathways across individual, leadership, organisational, system, and future workforce levels to build mentally healthy, inclusive workplaces.
When sharing lived experience feels safe and supported within teams, it has the potential to improve the safety and quality of mental health services for service users, as well as promoting more mentally healthy and inclusive workplaces. This connects workplace culture directly to service quality — psychological safety within teams is positioned not just as a staff wellbeing issue but as a factor influencing the experiences and outcomes of the people those teams support.
Staff in designated Lived Experience roles report experiences of workplace stigma and discrimination, including stereotypes that affect relationships and opportunities for advancement, and having a diagnosis or receiving treatment has been reported as potentially discrediting. However, staff with lived experience also see clear value in their experiences for helping them support and connect with service users. Practices that support the Lived Experience workforce — including flexibility, reasonable adjustments, and supportive informal and formal supervision — have benefits for all staff, not only those in designated roles.
Reducing the impact of mental health stigma in mental health workplaces requires coordinated action at individual, manager/team leader, organisational, system, and future workforce levels. At the individual level, recommendations include using inclusive and recovery-focused language and being open to the contribution of Lived Experience expertise. At the manager and team leader level, recommendations include cultivating psychological safety, providing workplace accommodations, creating accessible spaces for support, and enabling reflective practice through supervision and mentoring. At the organisational level, recommendations include inclusive recruitment and retention strategies, senior leadership partnership with Lived Experience leaders, storytelling and contact-based stigma reduction, ongoing co-facilitated training, and embedding the National Lived Experience (Peer) Workforce Development Guidelines. At the system level, recommendations include supporting the national representative body for Lived Experience workers, creating accountability for clinicians and medical staff, and reviewing requirements for mental health declarations. For shaping the future workforce, recommendations include embedding Lived Experience expertise in medical curriculums and tertiary education and practice preparation.
Did this resource draw on transformative evidence?
Yes — The brief includes a dedicated "Lived-Experience Perspectives on Supportive Workplaces" section, drawing on research involving staff in designated Lived Experience roles regarding their workplace experiences, including stereotypes, discrediting attitudes, and the value they bring to supporting service users.
Yes — The pathways to implementation table draws on accumulated organisational and sector practice knowledge across individual, leadership, organisational, system, and future workforce levels, including reference to existing frameworks such as the National Lived Experience (Peer) Workforce Development Guidelines and generic workplace guidance from the Queensland Mental Health Commission and Comcare.
Yes — The brief draws on an extensive reference list including research on mental health-related stigma in healthcare settings (Henderson et al., 2014), workplace sharing of mental health challenges (King et al., 2021), the value of peer workers (Byrne et al., 2018), consumer-worker experiences (Edan et al., 2021), organisational interventions to address provider stigma (Harris et al., 2019), and the National Stigma and Discrimination Reduction Strategy (NMHC, 2023).
How can this resource help me as a...?
Managers, team leaders, and organisational leaders are a primary audience, with specific guidance on cultivating psychological safety, providing accommodations, inclusive recruitment, and senior leadership partnership with Lived Experience leaders.
All mental health workers — in designated and non-designated roles — are addressed, with guidance on inclusive language, collegial support, and engaging with Lived Experience expertise.
System-level recommendations regarding accountability for clinicians and medical staff, national workforce frameworks, and professional standards make this directly relevant to policymakers.
Staff in designated Lived Experience roles are a central focus of this brief, with specific discussion of the stigma and discrimination they experience and the supports that benefit them.
The brief identifies gaps in scalable models for supportive workplace initiatives and draws on a substantial body of workplace stigma research, making it relevant to researchers in this area.