It is a systemic improvement that organizations and companies of all shapes and sizes are seeking the input of people with diverse lived experiences to inform choices and strategies that will lead to a more equitable future. However, there are complexities to these invitations, which without appropriate intentions, goals, and support can appear (and can actually be) performative, extractive, and retraumatizing.
It is an act of generosity for people with lived experience to offer their insights
When people with lived experience (PWLE) choose to offer their knowledge, opinions, and insights, they often are taking significant risks to their reputations, mental health, and personal safety. We always need to remember that people who experience discrimination have not caused the circumstances that they encounter in their day-to-day lives; rather they experience the world through long-established systems that exist to exclude Indigenous people, Black people and People of Colour, people with visible and invisible disabilities, and LGBTQ2+ people. As such, their willingness to participate in boards, committees, and any other bodies and spaces that rely on their knowledge and experience for other people to grow is a generous act. In reality, it should not be their burden to carry; in a truly equitable world, the work to improve the systems would be done by the people who continue to benefit from and perpetuate them. The fact that PWLE must both illuminate inequities and still be negatively impacted by them is terribly unfair. We need to offer compensation to people with lived experience.
Best practices in determining appropriate compensation
There are excellent resources substantiating this choice and practice already. In 2019, the University of Guelph’s Community-Engaged Scholarship Institute published a study called Compensating People with Lived Experience: Best Practices from the Literature, In this document, there is an outline of Roles: possibilities for peer work (page 19), showing how PWLE are engaged across a spectrum of power, ranging in the following way:
- Leading (peers are in charge)
- Partnering (peers are equals)
- Collaborating (peers are actively involved)
- Consulting (peers are given some influence)
- Informing (peers are asked but given less influence)
- Tokenizing (peers’ presence is symbolic or “just for show”)
- Using (peers are treated as means to organizational ends)
On Page 25 of the same document, there is a very helpful passage:
It is considered the “gold standard” to financially compensate PWLE for their work in alignment with professional compensation for similar work (CAMH, 2019; Coleman et al., 2017; LEAC, 2016; Paradis, 2018; Vancouver Coastal Health, 2016). Always pay a peer for the minimum number of hours plus any time they have worked beyond the minimum (Becu & Allan, 2018). If engagements are under one hour in length, payment for a full hour should be made (Becu & Allan, 2018). Recommended payment amounts (Becu & Allan, 2018; Cheff, 2018; Coleman et al., 2017; Saskatoon Poverty Reduction Partnership, 2017; Wilcox, Pei, Boyer, & Johnson, 2018) are as follows:
- Advisory role (e.g., meeting, document review): $25/hour
- Peer support worker: $30/hour during meeting, $100/day flat for on-call 24-hour peer support plus meeting rate (as applicable)
- Presentation, facilitation: $50/hour
- Task-based work: at least the local living wage
- Employment, contract: market rate, with applicable benefits, for similar non-peer roles
These are, of course, guidelines specific to the standards within the above-mentioned organizations. Organizations seeking to set payment amounts should look at the standard amounts paid within their own sectors and devise comparable standards.
What is the risk of not compensating PWLE?
Without any plan to compensate PWLE offering knowledge or advice based on lived experience, organizations run the risk of Tokenizing or Using PWLE. The cost of offering compensation does not need to be large, but the cost to an organization’s ability to gain trust and traction with equity-seeking individuals and groups, as well as with the general public, will potentially be far greater if they do not.
However, remember that it is also critical that compensation is decided by the PWLE for whom it is intended. Some will not be interested in receiving compensation, and that decision needs to be honoured too. One option to support autonomous decision-making in this area is by using Statements of Presence.
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