Dr Louise Byrne is currently employed at RMIT University as a Vice Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Management. 

Louise was awarded the inaugural 2017 RMIT Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship to conduct research in the United States and will be based at the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health for several months in 2018.  

Louise has been a Chief Investigator on past and present projects that combined have been awarded over $1.3 million in competitive funding. Louise’s research interests include mental health lived experience/peer workforce development, recovery principles, health professional capacity building and diversity/inclusion employment. Louise has nearly 10 years University research and teaching experience on lived experience in mental health and has worked in lived experience specific positions since 2004. 

During the years of 2013 – 2017 Louise was awarded several times for outstanding contributions to research and teaching in the area of lived experience/peer mental health work and concepts. 

Louise has also been featured on respected national media including Radio National ‘Life Matters’ and ABC’s ‘Q&A’. 

Louise has a firm commitment to industry based, industry relevant research and believes effective engagement, relationship building and collaboration with industry and other stakeholders is essential for best practice research outcomes.

Louise, is a qualitative researcher with deep knowledge of organisational issues relevant to ‘lived experience’ mental health employment. Louise’s work is informed by her own experiences of mental health diagnosis, service use and periods of healing. 

Louise is currently focused on her Fulbright Postdoctoral Research and is also a co-investigator on:

• Parkinson, L., Banbury, A., Livingstone, A., Byrne, L., Gordon, S., Ray, B., Doran, C. (2017) Caring for carers of people with dementia: Harnessing Innovation through deploying leading edge technologies to enable virtual support groups and services. Dementia and Aged Care Services Research and Innovation Funding Round – Grant Opportunity 1 – Support for existing and emerging challenges in dementia. 2017-2019, $744, 453

Her recently funded projects include:

• Byrne, L. (2016). Identifying barriers to change: the lived experience worker as a valued member of the mental health team. Queensland Mental Health Commission $53, 283
• Byrne, L., Schoeppe, S. & Bradshaw, J. (2016). Establishing existing community understanding of the new paradigm in mental health; ‘recovery principles’. CQUniversity $19,500

In addition to her peer-reviewed publications Louise also regularly contributes to industry based publications.  Recent work includes:

• Byrne, L. (2017) “Promoting lived experience perspective: Discussion paper prepared for the Queensland Mental Health Commission.”
• Byrne, L., H. Roennfeldt and P. O’Shea (2017). Identifying barriers to change: The lived experience worker as a valued member of the mental health team. Brisbane, Queensland Mental Health Commission. Final Report.

Louise has a TEDx presentation available on YouTube.  

Field of media

• Mental health and wellbeing
• Lived experience perspectives and roles
• Peer work
• Mental health in inclusion strategies

• 2010-2014 CQUniversity – PhD, co-funded industry scholarship
• 1998-1999 Griffith University – Master of Arts (with honours) in Media Production

Louise originally trained in Intentional Peer Support – a form of face to face lived experience support.

She previously worked in a variety of lived experience roles across the mental health and higher education sectors, including systemic advocacy positions, the first full-time lived experience mental health academic role in Australia, and as an expert advisory role to the Queensland Mental Health Commission in 2015.

• Byrne, L.,Roper, C.,Happell, B.,Reid-Searl, K. (2019). The stigma of identifying as having a lived experience runs before me: challenges for lived experience roles In: Journal of Mental Health, 28, 260 – 266
  
  
• Byrne, L.,Roennfeldt, H.,Wang, Y.,O’Shea, P. (2019). ‘You don’t know what you don’t know’: The essential role of management exposure, understanding and commitment in peer workforce development In: International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 28, 572 – 581
  
  
• Byrne, L.,Schoeppe, S.,Bradshaw, J. (2018). Recovery without Autonomy: Progress forward or more of the same for mental health service users? In: International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 27, 1459 – 1469
  
  
• Byrne, L.,Stratford, A.,Davidson, L. (2018). The global need for lived experience leadership In: Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 41, 76 – 79
  
  
• Parkinson, L.,Banbury, A.,Livingstone, A.,Gordon, S.,Ray, B.,Byrne, L.,Nancarrow, S.,Doran, C.,McAllister, M.,Petersen, C.,Pedell, S.,Wood, D. (2018). Caring for carers of people with dementia: A protocol for harnessing innovation through deploying leading edge technologies to enable virtual support groups and services In: Proceedings of the 5th Global Telehealth Conference (GT 2017), Adelaide, Australia , 24 November 2017
  
  
• Byrne, L.,Roennfeldt, H.,O’Shea, P.,Macdonald, F. (2018). Taking a gamble for high rewards? Management perspectives on the value of mental health peer workers In: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15, 1 – 12
  
  
• Byrne, L. (2018). Research promoting and supporting the peer workforce: how to use it, how to create it In: Peer Work in Australia: A New Future for Mental Health, Richmondpra Limited, Sydney, Australia
  
  
• Byrne, L.,Happell, B.,Reid-Searl, K. (2017). Acknowledging rural disadvantage in mental health: views of peer workers In: Perspectives in Psychiatric Care, 53, 259 – 265
  
  
• Byrne, L.,Happell, B.,Reid-Searl, K. (2017). Risky business: Lived experience mental health practice, nurses as potential allies In: International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 26, 285 – 292
  
  
• Byrne, L. (2017). Lived experience and personal narrative: pathways to connection In: Text: journal of writing and writing courses, , 1 – 11

View more outputs from this academic in the RMIT Research Repository