Recovery Shared is committed to the mission of inspiring and empowering people toward better mental health. We challenge ourselves and others to define and realise meaningful lives in recovery. We acknowledge and support the experience of living alongside mental health concerns while also fostering the belief that these should not be the defining characteristic of who we are. The peer workforce is a unique and vital part of mental health services, both in their delivery and design. We offer services that are informed and provided utilising the education, training and expertise of people with lived experiences of mental health concerns and continued recovery - promoting the peer workforce while empowering the people we support to help define the way in which we work. Our team are supported through skills building and mentorship, professional peer worker supervision, information technology and a collaborative approach to service provision - all with the goal of providing an environment for people to learn, explore, share and connect in ways that are most important and relevant to individual needs.
Mike
Founder & Senior Mental Health Peer Worker
north shore
Mike is passionate about peer-led recovery; empowering people to discover and realise greater independence, purpose and meaning because of, and alongside, mental health concerns and continued recovery. As its founder, Mike continues to work on his vision of Recovery Shared being an industry leader in delivery of community-based psychosocial support services. Mike has Certificate IV qualifications in Mental Health, Alcohol and Other Drugs, and Mental Health Peer Work; he has completed training in Psychosocial Recovery Coaching, Support Coordination, group facilitation, suicide response and trauma informed practice, and attended numerous industry workshops and intensives. Prior to creating Recovery Shared, Mike spent over 3 years as a Mental Health Peer Worker for Community Living Supports Northern Sydney where, in addition to providing psychosocial supports and coordinating services for individuals, he helped define the Mental Health Peer Worker role and inform recovery-oriented practice within the service. Mike has worked as an Evening/Weekend Counsellor at South Pacific Private Hospital, participated in work placement at The Cabin Outpatient Addiction Treatment Centre and has held a variety of other roles in a diverse range of industries. Through working in mental health roles in the Northern Sydney area for the past 8 years and drawing from a lived experience of area mental health services gained over the past 30 years, Mike is an enthusiastic advocate for people being the leaders of their own mental health supports; he regularly liaises with case managers, government, education and employment services, and clinical, community and allied health providers. Outside of (and sometimes during) work hours, Mike loves riding motorbikes, making - and breaking - stuff, working on his own recovery, and spending time with friends, family, and his very friendly labrador Daryl.