David Burnside

Lived Experience Lead
Odyssey Auckland
New Zealand

Dave Burnside has a lived experience of mental health challenges, problematic substance use, homelessness and incarceration and has been in active recovery for 16 years. He has worked for Odyssey in Auckland for 11 years, mostly in peer and consumer roles and is now part of the Odyssey Executive Team as the Lived Experience Lead, overseeing the work of Odyssey’s Centre for Lived Experience Peer Support and Social Recovery, ‘Taupae Wheako’ His role is to support the development of the peer and lived experience workforce through advocacy, training delivery and social recovery model approaches.
After spending many years in prisons and engaging with mental health services, Dave now has a Post Graduate Diploma in Health Science, Mental Health and Addiction (PGDipHSc), a Master’s in Law (LLM, Hons), is involved in supporting Post Graduate programmes at AUT and Auckland University. He teaches in both health and law focusing mainly on recovery concepts/principles and social justice and is strongly connected to recovery initiatives internationally. He is active in supporting harm reduction, drug law reform, addressing the stigma and discrimination of marginalized people, and solution focused justice research.