Signed in as:
filler@godaddy.com
Championing Lived Experience. Empowering Wellbeing. Accrediting Excellence
Championing Lived Experience
The Lived Experience & Trauma-Informed Hub brings together training, development and quality assurance to strengthen lived experience and trauma-informed practice.
We work with individuals, training providers and employers to develop people, strengthen practice and improve services.
Explore Services
Lived Experience Training
From lived experience speaking, boundary setting to trauma-informed awareness. We support you to enhance skills and practice through AAL's own specialist training and development programmes.
Accredited Training Register
Explore the specialist training available from our partner organisations, who have been quality assured and accredited by AAL.
Lived Experience Service Accreditation (LESA)
If you offer a community service, this accreditation supports organisations demonstrate that their services are inclusive, safe and impactful.
Meet our Lived Experience Team
Stephanie Porter
Kevin Fitzpatrick
Kevin Fitzpatrick
Lived Experience Programme Lead
Stephanie heads up the Lived Experience Training Hub. She brings over 20 years of lived experience alongside professional expertise in training, facilitation, and recovery-focused practice.
"My lived experience includes being an affected other to family members impacted by alcohol and substance use, mental h
Lived Experience Programme Lead
Stephanie heads up the Lived Experience Training Hub. She brings over 20 years of lived experience alongside professional expertise in training, facilitation, and recovery-focused practice.
"My lived experience includes being an affected other to family members impacted by alcohol and substance use, mental health challenges, family foster care as well as my own lived experience of gambling addiction.
Before completing the LEAFS course, I did not know how to keep myself safe when sharing my story. This learning underpins my commitment to supporting charities and organisations to develop safe, ethical, and sustainable lived experience practice for their staff and volunteers.
I believe everyone has a story, and everyone deserves the safety, choice, and support to share it well. Our courses are designed to help organisations build confident, supported teams and to ensure lived experience is shared with care and purpose."
Kevin Fitzpatrick
Kevin Fitzpatrick
Kevin Fitzpatrick
Lived Experience Trainer
Kevin is a Lived Experience Trainer who draws on his own journey of recovery and growth to support others in building confidence, resilience, and self-belief. He brings a grounded, real-world perspective to his training, creating spaces where people feel understood rather than judged. He believes that lived experi
Lived Experience Trainer
Kevin is a Lived Experience Trainer who draws on his own journey of recovery and growth to support others in building confidence, resilience, and self-belief. He brings a grounded, real-world perspective to his training, creating spaces where people feel understood rather than judged. He believes that lived experience, when supported and developed, is a powerful tool for personal progress, meaningful change, and influencing others.
Claire Donegan
Kevin Fitzpatrick
Maureen Ferguson
Lived Experience Trainer
Claire is a CBH Therapist and Recovery Coach from Ireland. Having spent nearly a decade of her life in the grips of gambling addiction, Claire now uses her lived experience to help others.
”When I first decided that I wanted to use my lived experience to help others, I enrolled in the AAL Lived Experience Accredite
Lived Experience Trainer
Claire is a CBH Therapist and Recovery Coach from Ireland. Having spent nearly a decade of her life in the grips of gambling addiction, Claire now uses her lived experience to help others.
”When I first decided that I wanted to use my lived experience to help others, I enrolled in the AAL Lived Experience Accredited Facilitator and Speaker Programme to learn how I could best use my voice to create a dialogue and deliver my story effectively. The skills I learned through the course have helped me to establish my career as a Lived Experience Advocate, and now I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to share that knowledge as an AAL Trainer.”
Maureen Ferguson
Kevin Fitzpatrick
Maureen Ferguson
Lived Experience Trainer
Maureen is a Lived Experience Trainer who suffered with a Gambling addiction for over 5 years, who is now 2 years Gamble Free.
"I have transitioned from the challenges of active addiction to a life defined by purpose, clarity, I am at a point now where helping others find their way out of the cycle of harm is my
Lived Experience Trainer
Maureen is a Lived Experience Trainer who suffered with a Gambling addiction for over 5 years, who is now 2 years Gamble Free.
"I have transitioned from the challenges of active addiction to a life defined by purpose, clarity, I am at a point now where helping others find their way out of the cycle of harm is my main focus.
I attended the LEAF’s training course to enable me to share my story in a way that will help others. I then progressed to the Trainer course as I believe there are so many people out there with a story just like mine that needs to be shared.
I found that the more I told my story, the more I shared the better I was in my recovery"
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” - Mahatma Gandhi
Bio coming soon.