Purpose
The LX Lens exists to help lived and living experience and expertise (LX) become more meaningful, supported and influential in the projects that shape people's lives.
How to use this guide
The LX Lens Essentials is designed to help you:
- explain why LX matters
- introduce potentially useful language for LX
- think about participation, power and influence
- notice where a project may need more clarity, support or follow-through
- decide your next steps
You can use it:
- before starting a project
- when reviewing a project that already involves LX
- when explaining the value of LX in your project to managers, commissioners or partners
Suggested citation Edwards, G. (2026). The LX Lens Essentials: A practical guide to stronger projects involving lived and living experience and expertise. The LX Lens.
This document is for education, reflection and project guidance only. Full disclaimer and selected sources are included at the end.
Opening note
Good intentions matter.
But effective projects involving lived and living experience and expertise need more than goodwill.
They need a clear purpose. They need honest influence. They need supported participation. They need shared meaning-making. They need accountable follow-through.
This paper is for people trying to make LX work more meaningful, supported and useful: project workers, managers, leaders and allies who need a clearer rationale and practical starting point.
It draws particularly on mental health, alcohol and other drugs, suicide prevention, co-design, evaluation and public service reform, with practical roots in Australia and Aotearoa | New Zealand.
The ideas are offered as adaptable guidance for any project where people affected by an issue should meaningfully shape what is learned, designed, decided or changed.
This paper will help you understand:
- what LX means, why it matters and where it adds value
- how to think about participation, power and influence
- where to start if you want to strengthen your own project
The aim is simple:
To help good intentions become clearer, safer, more meaningful, and more useful in practice.
What is LX?
In this guide, LX means lived and living experience and expertise.
The phrase is deliberately broad. Projects often involve people in different ways, at different stages, and with different kinds of knowledge.
Some people bring direct personal experience. Some bring current or ongoing living experience. Some bring expertise developed through reflection, peer work, advocacy, research, leadership, community work or professional practice.
The LX Lens brings these together because effective projects need more than stories. They need lived and living experience and expertise to meaningfully shape the work.
The Four Aspects - Lived | Living | Experience | Expertise
Lived experience
Personal knowledge from having been there. Shows what services, systems and decisions feel like from the inside: insight only experience can bring.
Living experience
Personal knowledge from what is current, ongoing or actively lived. People may still be navigating systems and choices. Shows what people are navigating now and what supports dignity, safety and choice.
Expertise from our experiences
Experience plus reflection, development and application. Includes analysis, pattern recognition, practice wisdom, peer work, advocacy, research and leadership. Experience becomes applied knowledge.
Expertise from working life
Skills and knowledge developed through study, work and practice: paid, voluntary, professional, community or creative work. Strong LX work draws on both personal knowledge and working-life capability.
Strong projects bring all four together to shape what is learned, designed, decided or changed.
Choose a question to discuss with your team and the people involved. The free project check can help you find a place to start.
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