EP 3 - PEER WORK GREMLIN WITH EMMA PAINO

Join Communities Of Collaboration Host Fi Peel and Mental Health Peer Work Trainer Emma Paino as they explore the stigma and medicalisation of adaptive responses to adversity, the value of trauma-informed approaches in lived experience training settings and the importance of keeping person-centred care front and centre in everything we do.

Learn why Emma is passionate about all things peer work, the problems of the medical model as a gateway for mental health care and non-dominant frames for understanding mental distress. Together, Fi and Emma chat candidly about the privilege and responsibility inherent in supporting people to feel safe and connected as they creatively integrate new information to reframe past experiences of vulnerability.

Emma Paino (pronouns: she/her) holds many roles within the lived experience and peer work space. Emma is a peer educator – working full time as a trainer and assessor of the Cert IV in Mental Health Peer Work as well as designing & delivering mental health training for the wider community and mental health sector. Emma is also an external peer supervisor, peer academic and works in both phone-based peer support and suicide peer support. Less formally Emma would describe herself as a peer work gremlin with a passion for planting seeds of knowledge in the peer work communities she deeply values.

As a peer educator, Emma finds the most transformative learning spaces are trauma informed and hold space for freedom of emotional expression. Emma is honoured to educate topics which allow for a learner’s personal and professional reflection and growth. As someone who frequently holds boundaries in her roles to welcome thriving relationships, Emma values spaces where she can be authentically herself these include karaoke, belly dancing, pole dancing, camping and finding natural watering holes to play and soak in. The more space Emma makes for herself the more space she can hold for the work she loves and continue to guide and support the ever-expanding peer work community & modality of practice.

You can find out more about Emma and their mental health reform passions by reaching out to them on LinkedIn.