Lived Experience Engagement Program (LEEP)
LEEP supports victim-survivors of sexual violence and child sexual abuse from diverse intersectional backgrounds to drive meaningful change by sharing their lived experiences.
Our lived experience workers receive training, mentoring, support, and payment to do this work.
LEEP is available to any external organisation who wishes to hear from or collaborate with our lived experience workers. The program has two main ways it operates through lived experience advocacy and peer support.
LEEP for organisations
We welcome inquiries from organisations that would like to work with our advocates.
LEEP for victim-survivors
Get involved by becoming a lived experience worker or engaging with a peer support group.
LEEP for organisations
We welcome inquiries from organisations that would like to work with our advocates.
Our lived experience workers can consult, collaborate, and lead in partnership with your organisation to ensure its projects, services, and initiatives are safer and more relevant for victim-survivors. For ideas on what such partnerships can look like, read the section below on ‘LEEP: Lived Experience Advocacy’.
Lived experience engagement process: what to expect
How to engage with LEEP
Complete an Organisation Engagement Request Form and send to Sarai Sipriano
More information
Sarai Sipriano
Therapeutic options
People recover in different ways. Just as there are no right or wrong reactions to trauma, there is no one way to heal.
Laurel House counsellors will work with you to find an approach that feels right for you.
You may find that strategies taken from many different therapies are what you need. Here are just a few we might draw on while working with you.
When we find other information or resources that might help you in your healing journey, we can also share these with you.
As you recover, we look to strengthen your resilience, understand inner conflicts, develop healthy boundaries, improve your social connections, get better insight into how you cope, build your self-esteem, manage any addictions, reduce anxiety and restore your wellbeing.
It is important to give yourself the time to heal and the chance to try different approaches at different stages of your recovery.
Art therapy
Art therapy gives us a way to express emotions through creativity, when words are not accessible. Art therapy can use different forms of art, Laurel House counsellors may use drawing, painting, knitting, crocheting, modelling sculptures, crafting, and sand play to support a person’s healing.
Cognitive behavioural therapy
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) focuses on the connection between our thoughts, feelings, and actions. We can often get stuck in patterns of thinking that make sense in terms of our trauma but are not helpful to us. CBT can help us slow our thinking down and gently challenge and change our patterns so they are less distressing.
Narrative therapy
The way we tell the story of what happened to us makes a difference to how we see ourselves. We can draw on the stories of our lives that remind us of strengths and what we love and care about. Giving these things a voice can be a very powerful way to support healing.
Person-centred therapy
This approach recognises that you are the expert in your own life and your own experience. It also recognises that we all have an ability to heal and to grow in life, if we are given the chance. If those helping us can meet us with complete positive regard and can really listen without any judgement or trying to force an agenda, we will start to move naturally towards resolving the problems that brought us to counselling.
Acceptance and commitment therapy
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) helps us to be open to our experience in the here and now. It teaches us to accept our feelings and our thoughts, without struggling against them or judging them. It helps us to find what values we have and what goals we want to commit to in our lives.
Three-phased trauma recovery
For those of us who have complex trauma, it can help to see therapy in three phases.
Phase 1: Safety and stabilisation
We work to develop a toolkit for managing distress (the ways you deal with flashbacks, nightmares, strong emotional reactions, dissociation and so on).
Phase 2: Processing
We work on dealing with the impact of trauma. We can deal with memories directly or by working on the legacy left by the memories.
Phase 3: Integrating
We can work on what it takes for you to reconnect and reorient in your life.
Additional therapies
We also draw from many other approaches, including talk therapy, dialectic behaviour therapy, eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) and solution-focused therapy.
Get help now
If you, or anyone else is in immediate danger, call 000
Northern Tasmania
North West Tasmania
If you require assistance outside of business hours, please call the 24/7 Statewide Support number below:
Have a less urgent enquiry?
Please fill out the form below and your enquiry will be responded to within two business days
