Lived Governance Lead

Position: Lived Experience Governance Lead
Senior Director, Community Programs and Strategies Direct Reports

N/A

Organization Summary

Canadian Mental Health Association - Edmonton Region (CMHA Edmonton) is a community-based organization dedicated to strengthening mental health and wellbeing for all. Guided by its mission to advance a coordinated and effective system of community mental health and suicide prevention programs and services, CMHA Edmonton delivers a broad range of supports, including crisis response, navigation services, housing services, peer and family programs, and community-based initiatives.

The organization is committed to person-centred service delivery, collaboration, lived-experience leadership, and continuous improvement in support of meaningful and lasting community impact.

Program Area Summary

CMHA Edmonton's Community Programs and Strategies area offers community mental health programs grounded in lived experience. The team co-designs and co-facilitates community outreach, lived experience engagement, recovery-oriented education, community-based research, system-change initiatives, and peer-led evaluation. Through strong partnerships, the area works to improve mental health, housing stability, social inclusion, and community wellbeing across Edmonton.

Role Summary

The Lived Experience Governance Lead coordinates and supports Edmonton’s Strategy for Community Mental Health (SCMH), the Council for Community Mental Health (CCMH), and a Systems Change Leadership table. The role works with CMHA Edmonton programs, City of Edmonton, people with lived and living experience, and community leaders and partners to help build a more connected and effective community mental health system.

The position leads inclusive and trauma-informed engagement, supports the CCMH, its committees, and Systems Change Leadership tables, helping to ensure community voices shape priorities, decisions, implementation, and evaluation. The position leads coordination and communication, maintains feedback loops with participants, and tracks key actions, plans, risks, and deliverables. The role works closely with CCMH members, CMHA Edmonton leadership, system and service organization leaders, City partners, lived experience insight communities, and project leads across the initiative.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide backbone coordination for SCMH, CCMH, and Systems Change Leadership activities across CMHA Edmonton, the City of Edmonton, lived experience communities, and partner organizations.
• Support the implementation and continuous improvement of CCMH and Systems Change Leadership governance structures, committees, action groups, and related processes.
• Coordinate meetings and governance activities, including agendas, materials, records, decisions, action items, and follow-up.
• Recruit, onboard, orient, and support CCMH members and other initiative participants.
• Support Systems Change Leadership engagement with the CCMH.
• Serve as a central point of contact and maintain effective communication, alignment, workplans, timelines, risks, and progress reporting across partners and initiatives.

Lived Experience Engagement & Community Building

• Work with Lived Experience Engagement Lead to build and maintain a diverse lived experience insight community that informs SCMH priorities and decision-making for the CCMH and Systems Change Leadership.
• Create meaningful opportunities for people with lived and living experience to identify priorities, share insights, develop recommendations, and influence systems change.
• Build relationships with community members, grassroots organizations, Indigenous and ethnocultural communities, equity-deserving groups, and other interest holders.
• Ensure engagement approaches are inclusive, culturally responsive, trauma-informed, recovery-oriented, peer-centred, and accessible, including providing appropriate participant supports and accommodations.

Facilitation, Communications, & Knowledge Sharing

• Plan and facilitate meetings, community conversations, workshops, focus groups, webinars, gatherings, and leadership forums in virtual, in-person, and hybrid formats.
• Create safe and respectful spaces that support lived experience leadership, dialogue, collaboration, and shared learning.
• Gather, analyse, and synthesize community feedback into reports, recommendations, presentations, and decision-support materials.
• Maintain clear feedback loops so participants understand how their input informs decisions, priorities, and actions.
• Support initiative communications, knowledge sharing,…