Lived expertise is the knowledge, insight, wisdom, and leadership cultivated through firsthand experiences with the systems and conditions that shape people’s lives. It is not simply experience. It is expertise. It offers an understanding of how systems function in practice, why they produce the outcomes they do, and what is needed to transform them. When people with lived expertise are connected, valued, and empowered to lead, they become catalysts for more equitable, responsive, and human-centered systems.
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