“Lived experience” in human rights-based approaches
Monash GPS Affiliate, Delia Paul has been working with the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) to amplify the voices of people seeking asylum in shaping advocacy practices and service development.
Social service organisations often refer to the value of “lived experience” in their work, but to date there is little research into how lived experience can apply in advocacy and services for people seeking asylum. The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) in Melbourne is seeking to integrate lived experience in its service design, delivery and advocacy. Underpinning the ASRC’s practice is a strong focus on research to gain insights from how others are navigating similar challenges.
ASRC is in a process of transitioning from needs-based to rights-based approaches to become an organisation in which people are empowered to know and claim their rights. A key part of its organisational strategy is to ensure the lived experience of people seeking asylum are amplified in its service design and advocacy efforts.
In early 2025, Delia Paul, an affiliate at Monash GPS, was invited to review how organisations similar to ASRC are drawing on lived experience in their work. Working with Yonas Dare, ASRC’s Monitoring and Evaluation Lead, the research team sought to gain a deeper understanding of the structures, systems, enablers and barriers to better representation and inclusion of the lived experience of people seeking asylum.
Experiences of organisations working with people seeking asylum
Few studies have focused on the experiences of organisations working with refugees and people seeking asylum. Among those that did, many did not specifically address how lived experience had informed service design, delivery or advocacy. Nevertheless, some Australian organisations that provide services to refugees and persons seeking asylum do explicitly draw on staff and clients’ lived experience to inform their work.
The review found that organisations working with refugees and people seeking asylum do so in three main ways: by recruiting staff and volunteers with lived experience to deliver their programs; by supporting and empowering people with lived experience to advocate publicly for changes in policy and practice; and by using people with lived experience to train mainstream service providers in sectors that employ a large number of migrants and refugees.
Existing organisational approaches to integrating lived experience exhibited some weaknesses, such as cultural “othering” of bicultural case workers, who may be treated as tools for professional staff to accomplish their own work, while not requiring that professional staff themselves should develop cultural competence (Vincent et al., 2024). There is currently little evidence of organisations drawing on the lived experience of people seeking asylum to co-design programs. This may be due to lack of citizenship status, even though people seeking asylum may remain in-country for long periods without their status being resolved. In a Scottish study that investigated the different roles played by service users, Strokosch and Osborne (2016) showed that co-design of public services in Scotland was both feasible and desirable as a citizenship practice, even without citizenship status, and could be undertaken even at a micro level in services offered by local community groups.
Paul and Dare’s review showed how people seeking asylum experience many more barriers to self-determination than other community groups, due to their unresolved settlement status. Seeking to involve people seeking asylum in self-advocacy may also expose them to further difficulties. People on temporary visas have justifiable fears of repercussion if they advocate publicly on asylum issues while they are still going through the approval process themselves. Practices of allyship and “accompaniment”, as practiced by some Catholic organisations, and of involving people in personal arts-based activities, could be further explored.
One unanticipated finding from the review was that case workers with lived experience face high risk of being re-traumatised by exposure to distressing client stories. An obvious avenue of future inquiry is what self-care and organisational support for such workers would look like.
Further steps
In October 2025, initial review findings were presented to participants at the ‘Regenerating Communities’ community development conference in Melbourne, organised by the Borderlands Cooperative. Feedback from participants affirmed the value and need for lived experience to inform social services and advocacy by and for people seeking asylum.
At present, Paul and Dare are working on publishing their findings, while seeking ways to expand the work to include research with similar organisations in Australia. One caveat to their initial findings is that published sources and websites offer only a limited view of organisational approaches. There could be valuable practices that are not documented on public sites, but which might be uncovered through direct contacts, interviews and observations.
To learn more and explore collaboration opportunities, contact Delia.Paul@monash.edu.
References
Strokosch, K., Osborne, S.P. (2016) Asylum Seekers and the Co-production of Public Services: Understanding the Implications for Social Inclusion and Citizenship. Journal of Social Policy. 2016;45(4):673-690. doi:10.1017/S0047279416000258
Vincent, K. (2024). Reconstructing the Bicultural Worker within Health and Human Service Organisations. Australian Social Work, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/0312407X.2024.2383225