Peer Researcher, Digital Mental Health

• Hybrid - Parkville (or Orygen Digital interstate offices) and WFH
• Part-time 2-year contract | 0.6-0.8 FTE considered
• Join a multidisciplinary team | Work within an agile team

About Orygen

Orygen is Australia’s Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health and the largest translational research organisation dedicated to youth mental health in the world.

For over 30 years, Orygen has led groundbreaking early intervention and developed evidence-based models of care to improve the mental health outcomes of young people aged 12-25.

About The Job

The Peer Researcher is a lived experience practitioner who works in partnership with multidisciplinary research teams to ensure young people’s lived experience priorities meaningfully shape the design, delivery and evaluation of digital mental health research.

Reporting To The Lived Experience Participation Lead You Will

• Participatory research design - plan and facilitate co-design and co-production activities with young people, families, and lived experience communities across the research lifecycle.
• Lived experience engagement - recruit, support and champion lived experience advisors, ensuring meaningful, ethical, and psychologically safe participation throughout.
• Research delivery & knowledge generation - contribute to protocols, ethics applications, data collection and analysis (particularly qualitative/participatory methods), and dissemination of findings.
• Lived experience leadership - apply lived expertise to inform research and decision-making, guiding multidisciplinary teams and championing non-tokenistic involvement.
• Reflective practice & continuous improvement - engage in supervision and professional development while helping evaluate and strengthen participatory research practice.

Skills and experience

The following criteria must be met for consideration for this position:

• A lived or living experience of mental ill-health as a consumer and/or family & carer, and demonstrated ability to apply this perspective as lived expertise within professional settings
• Demonstrated understanding of lived experience participation, peer practice and/or contemporary participatory research approaches
• Experience contributing to research, evaluation, co-design, lived experience participation or related projects
• Highly collaborative – able to foster great working relationships and effectively engage others
• Comfortable working in evolving research environments and contributing to innovative approaches

Benefits

• $73,000 - $78,000 pro rata commensurate with skills and experience + 12% superannuation and $15,900 in NFP salary packaging + $2,600 meals and entertainment card.
• Embrace the freedom of a hybrid work model, combining remote work with on-site collaboration.
• Make a real impact on young people in a dynamic, youth-centered environment.
• Work in a state-of-the-art facility co-designed with young people to advance youth mental health.
• Support Orygen's mission for youth mental health and contribute to positive social change.

How to apply

If you’re ready to make a difference in youth mental health and be part of a collaborative, innovative team, apply now.

For the full position description, visit https://www.orygen.org.au/getmedia/f914e09d-eee4-45c3-b55d-8b39837a32ad/Peer-Researcher-Digital-MH-Jul-26.pdf.aspx

This is a part time (0.6-0.8FTE considered) 2-year contract with potential to extend.

Applications will close on 27th July (10am), unless a suitable candidate is found sooner.

Before applying at Orygen, it’s important to understand that you may encounter sensitive information related to mental health as part of your work. Being aware of this and how it could affect you is essential in deciding if this is the right opportunity for you.

Orygen is committed to providing diverse, equitable and inclusive environments for Staff and anyone connected to Orygen. We strive to continue building a culturally safe workplace where our values underpin the way we work and our commitment to First Nations people of Australia, young people and their families, people with disabilities, LGBTIQA+ people and CALD communities. We strongly encourage applications from First Nations people.

Orygen is a child-safe organisation and is committed to promoting and protecting the safety and well-being of all young people and embedding safeguarding practices into all our programs and services. All employment appointments are subject to holding a valid working with children check and successful police check.