Lived experience narratives as social justice

AAS Conference, April 28th 2017, 2:45 PM

Authors: Vega, Bryan, Collins, Spencer-Thomas

Summary	Authors (Twitter)
Contact with someone with lived experience has best chance of addressing stigma Skilled speakers with lived experience of suicide attempts and loss, we can challenge stigma and silence Becoming a change agent from a purely private life of safety and low responsibility for others into blended life mixing personal passion and the public domain start with a period of reflection on the opportunities and potential consequences messaging guidelines to constructively inspire others advocates that are most successful find ways to integrate the suicide topics into everyday conversations think creatively about how to bring the issues into their classrooms, workplaces, and faith communities present to local community groups, organize town hall meetings and write letters to the editors educating elected officials, collaborating with the media, testifying at public hearings and organizing community rallies empower those who have suffered to publicly embrace their full identity going public with a personal story about suicide also carries risks: realities of backlash are tangible people may gossip and potentially try to discredit the messenger shift the blame from the sources of distress to the victims themselves develop new stories over the lifecycle of their suicide prevention engagement people recently affected by suicide people ready to start sharing their story change agents experiencing burnout and fatigue veterans ready to pass the torch onto the next generation	Eduardo Vega (@evega_mhdignity)
	Heidi Bryan (@heidibryan)
	Stan Collins
	Sally Spencer-Thomas (@sspencerthomas)

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