Matthew Jackman (They/Them)

Matthew is a gender diverse, non-binary award winning international Mad Activist. They are the recipient of the Mental Health Foundation of Australia's National Mental Health Advocate of the Year Award in 2020. They live with Bipolar Affective Disorder and Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (as defined by DSM/Psychiatry). Matthew views their ‘illness’ through a Mad lens as a spiritual and cultural gift from their mother. They are a sibling supporter, partner, and co-conspirator to their younger brother and sister who live with enduring psychosocial diverse abilities. They have lost their mother to suicide, and consequently their grandparents due to stigma. Matthew's intersectional, intergenerational, and complex experiences of distress, trauma, grief, and service use drive their passion for global social change in mental health through the Mad movement.

They are a global mental health activist promoting Mad studies, human rights, social justice, intersectionality, and lived experience perspective as an academic discipline. Matthew qualified in Social Work undertaking mental health counseling, radical case work, advocacy, group therapy, community development, social research, social policy, and personal/systems-level advocacy across diverse groups including criminal justice, forensic, and psychosocial diverse ability communities.

Matthew's Mad activism, education, and research reflect alternatives to biological approaches to human suffering and holistic wellbeing. They mobilize Mad studies as the scientific foundation for international lived experience advocacy work in mental health.

They represented the Western Pacific Region on the Global Mental Health Peer Network and were a Global Shaper with the World Economic Forum. They have represented lived experience perspectives on the National Advisory Panel (mental health) for the Australian Association of Social Workers. Matthew is a Global Lived Experience Ambassador for Generation Mental Health. They consult the World Health Organization and CBM International in mental health on various projects and reports pertaining to peer work and lived experience leadership.

Matthew trained in certified peer specialist practice in the USA undertaking their internship with the Chief of Peer Services in LA County, California. They are a visiting scholar in Psychiatry at Yale PRCH and have been a consultant with Harvard University in Global Mental Health pertaining to peer work in low and middle-income countries.

Their vision is to utilize personal power and privilege and mobilize vulnerabilities as strength and resilience, to make space for those with less power and equity. Through giving voice to those silenced, they aim to support others in finding their voice and transformative recovery through experiences of vulnerability, oppression, and discrimination.

Matthew is proudly Mad, Neuro-diverse, and Queer, utilizing their intersectional experiences of oppression and privilege in sharing their story and agitation of oppressive systems, institutions, and structures.

Join them in your systemic advocacy and influence.