Iris Benson MBE

Iris is a health services award recipient as patient leader, a qualified peer support worker, lived experience advanced practitioner in quality improvement, lived experience personal safety service trainer with Mersey Care NHS trust, is a of British Institute of Learning Disabilities, and lived experience assessor of BILD Accreditation of Certified Training. Iris is a public speaker, and has served as independent expert by experience and consultant nationally.

Iris describes being proud and privileged to work alongside staff of all disciplines across a UK NHS Trust, whose care over many years she believes has supported her during many frustrating and scary episodes on her journey of discovery. she would not be alive today. While Iris describes her has journey but incredibly worthwhile and I like many others continue to be on a Journey of discovery.
Iris is inspired by so many wonderful people, both qualified and unqualified, and places great emphasis on drawing upon her lived experiences of trauma in enabling others to understand the reasons underlying behaviours of concern.

Iris is deeply passionate and committed to inspiring change toward more effective and compassionate services, and inspiring hope in others along their recovery pathway.
Iris believes that we all have talents, and if effectively supported, people with lived experience can use these gifts to support others who use services, and their families and carers, to ensure that their voices are heard, in a safe, respectful, shared and collaborative way, bringing expression to Iris’s declaration that ‘we are all human beings together’