Supporting lived experience teaching academics through co-reflection

The involvement of people with lived experience of mental distress has growing recognition as a method for enhancing healthcare higher education. Although storytelling is a pedagogical tool to share these lived experiences, there has been limited attention to supporting the storytellers. This paper explores how the lived experience-led World of Difference programme addresses the challenge of supporting storytellers using a co-reflection space. Grounded in the Intentional Peer Support model, tuakana–teina, and critical academic friendship, the co-reflection space promotes mutual growth and provides a supportive environment for lived experience academics (storytellers). This paper concludes by emphasising the need for further exploration of such support practices to enhance the protection and empowerment of educators involved in lived experience storytelling in all areas of higher education, not only healthcare education, to ensure the sustainability of their contributions.