I am a Kannada (from the south of India) mental well-being and intersectionality lived experience leader and advocate who tries to bridge systemic gaps within peer and well-being sectors. I focus on the mental wellbeing of multicultural and intersectional communities by exploring culture, identity, and consumer perspectives. My work sits across lived expertise, service delivery, leadership, and governance, with a strong emphasis on driving organisational and systemic change.

I've also had experience in the social impact, entrepreneurship, social work and broader youth mental health sectors. I speak conversational Kannada and Hindi, and I mostly understand Marathi and a few other regional Indian languages. I'm also pansexual, a mom (of a 19 month old, 2 dogs and many plants), chronically overworked (and not mad about it) and love a little boogie (I may or may not be learning how to DJ) :)

I co-chair the Australians for Intersectionality and Diversity in Mental Health (aidMH)’s Solis support and capacity building network for multicultural mental health peers and professionals, and also coordinate the community of practice for the Victorian Department of Health's Intersectional LE (SID-LLEW) grants program. I've had input into the upcoming Victorian Lived and Living Experience Leadership Strategy, and I also chair the Multicultural Affinity Group for Australia’s consumer peak body, the National Mental Health Consumer Alliance (NMHCA). I've also completed two terms with the National Mental Health Commission’s Independent Advisory Board, headspace's National Board and have recently wrapped up with The Iceberg Foundation’s Board.

I've been in consumer roles for nearly 8+ years, and doing lived experience consulting for even longer (but just not calling it that given my Indian background and the fact that I didn't know what it was called :P).

Current & previous peer roles include:

Lived Experience Partner and Intersectional Equity Lead - Mind Australia

Chairperson of Multicultural Mental Health Affinity Group - National Mental Health Consumer Alliance

Lived and Living Experience (LLE) Technical Expert - Victorian LLE Leadership Strategy Development - SHARC

Board Youth Advisor - headspace National

CALD (Culturally and Linguistically Diverse) Youth Peer Support Worker - headspace Dandenong & Narre Warren

And you can find more here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niharika-hiremath/details/experience/

See above/below/where the experience section is :)

• Intentional Peer Support (IPS) - Completed Core Training & Train-the-Trainer (for both Core & Advanced), and regularly training at Mind Australia (2022-2026)
• Consumer Perspective Supervision (CPS) (2026)
• Extensive training and professional development delivery in the multicultural/intersectional space

Grounded in intersectional, social justice values and underpinned by CPS, my approach focuses less on what I can bring and more on how we can co-create something that promotes agency for you. I am especially interested in supervising and walking alongside folks from intersectional backgrounds who may not have been able to access tailored discipline-specific supervision in the past. Am always keen to have a chat to see if we are a good fit ahead of working together :)