Simon Champ (b. 1957) is a pioneering consumer activist who has advocated for the rights of individuals with mental illness in Australia since the early 1980s. He has been active in fighting the stigmas associated with mental illness, motivated by the conviction that individuals experiencing mental distress are individuals like everybody else and that they should be recognised as such.

In an interview with psychiatrist Donald Scott-Orr for the Re;Minding Histories research project in 2020, Scott-Orr summed up his approach to mental health – and could have been describing the philosophy of this research project. He said:

[W]e really need to start where people are, and where they feel and where they relate and are engaged, when we’re dealing with mental health. And then work out from there … what people are exposed to, what they get in their gut. The practical situation, the people they meet, and what their interests are, their heroes.

Janet Meagher (b. 1946), one of most Australia’s best-known and distinguished consumer advocates, became active in the early 1980s, shortly after she was discharged from Gladesville mental hospital in Sydney. Since then, she has worked tirelessly to improve the position of people with a lived experience of mental distress…

In 1981, Meg Smith set up a support group people diagnosed with bipolar disorder (which, at the time, was named manic-depressive disorder). Smith herself had only been diagnosed the previous year, after suffering years of experiencing episodes of significant mental distress.

‘One of the critical issues I have been reflecting on as I have revisited this interview is what made him such an effective change-agent. Firstly, Brian was never restrained by the limits of his formal profession, psychiatry, but instead looked well-beyond the silo, to systemic practice of course, but also to sociology, social epidemiology, cybernetics, feminism, leftists politics and more. Brian was a scholar, not simply a psychiatrist…’

Stronger Together. Many of the individuals featured here were also involved in organising the first community groups dedicated to mental health issues. Post-deinstitutionalisation, these groups formed a large part in shaping early communty mental health systems in different states across Australia. To find out more about the organisations and groups that advocated for the rights of consumers and former patients, and championed innovative approaches to addressing mental health needs in the community, head to: