Extremely Human: A Discovery College Journey into Storytelling and Shared Learning
Sharing experiences paper
Claire Harcla and Lucy Mahony With an Introduction to the series by Rachel Perkins
Introduction to the 'Sharing our Experiences' Series
This is the fifth paper in the Imroc Recovery Colleges 'Sharing Our Experience' series. These papers enable Recovery Colleges to share experiences, developments and innovations, and explore and how the principles on which Recovery Colleges are based can be realised in different ways and in different contexts. You can find a list of the other pieces at the end of this paper.
In this fifth paper in the series, colleagues from the Melbourne (Naarm) discovery college, Australia, describe the evolution of their pioneering, youth focused, discovery college. They describe an exciting and award-winning innovation and extension of the discovery college approach in the form of a podcast 'Extremely Human'.
Asking the question "how can we share learning in ways that are flexible, creative and accessible?" the authors describe how the college recognised that not everyone wants/is able to engage in a classroom setting – that some people want to engage in their own time, at their own pace, and in ways that feel less formal. As the authors emphasise, the Extremely Human podcast sits alongside the discovery college "offering a different route to the same shared learning journey" and reinforces "the importance of storytelling and the power of hearing lived and professional experience in an accessible, human way."
In the conclusions of the Imroc briefing paper "Recovery College 10 Years on"¹ it is emphasised that Recovery Colleges are "a continually evolving creation … There is always room for mixing the key ingredients together in new and different ways and adding different herbs and spices …[in] the ongoing process of co-production on which they are founded." (Perkins et al, 2018, p 32). This is precisely what Melbourne discovery college has demonstrated. As the authors say, the Extremely Human podcast is part of "an evolving experiment in how recovery college principles can live in new formats".
We are extremely impressed with the way in which they have co-produced this new, innovative format within which the key principles of a Recovery College remain central. It complements the existing co-produced, face to face and on-line workshops and courses and renders the College more accessible and responsive by enabling people to engage in ways that suit them. It has also greatly extended the reach of the discovery college nationally and internationally and has attracted much positive feedback. As the authors conclude "the podcast has become both a mirror and a bridge: a mirror reflecting our values in a new format, and a bridge connecting us with audiences far beyond our usual reach".
We would like to thank Melbourne (Naarm) discovery college colleagues for sharing their innovative initiative. We are sure that their experience will be of enormous value to other Discovery and Recovery Colleges who are seeking to extend their accessibility and reach, and the range of recovery-focused learning opportunities they offer.
Rachel Perkins, Imroc Senior Consultant
Background: Who We Are
Discovery college is a youth-focused Recovery College based in Melbourne (Naarm), Australia. We are a part of headspace Early Psychosis and Alfred Health's Infant, Child and Youth Area Mental Health and Wellbeing Service (ICYAMHWS). Through our work, we hope to bring people together to explore mental health, wellbeing, and recovery through shared learning. Our foundation is built on the principles of recovery colleges by learning with rather than about each other, valuing lived and professional experience equally and fostering environments where curiosity and hope thrive.
The Origins and Evolution of Discovery College
The idea for discovery college was sparked in 2012 when Paul Denborough (Director Infant, Child, Youth & headspace) attended a Recovery College course titled Understanding Self Harm during a sabbatical placement at Richmond Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in the UK. At the same time Glenda Pedwell (Deputy Director Operations Infant, Child, Youth & headspace) visited Nottingham Recovery College. This was their first encounter with the recovery college concept—a co-facilitated, community-based learning approach that brought together people from diverse backgrounds to share knowledge and experience. The professionalism and wisdom of the facilitators left a lasting impression, and Paul and Glenda returned to Australia with a hope to adapt this approach for young people.
An opportunity arose in 2013 when Alfred Health received funding to establish an early psychosis service. During co-design workshops, Paul and Glenda proposed the recovery college approach, which was met with enthusiasm. However, young people expressed discomfort with the term "recovery," leading to the creation of a new name: discovery college—a title that reflected curiosity, learning, and hope.
In 2014, foundational design work began through youth participation workshops and collaboration with MIND Recovery College, which provided training materials and guidance. These early efforts shaped the principles of co-production and inclusivity that remain central to discovery college today.
Discovery college was formally established in 2015, and the first course development workshops brought together experts by experience and profession to co-create and co-facilitate learning opportunities. By 2016, courses were running across five headspace centres in Melbourne's South Eastern Metropolitan region. During this time, we grew our team of facilitators, who were either experts by experience or profession. The model continued to evolve, and as we connected with more people who were keen to cofacilitate, we saw a need to introduce the role of trainee facilitators. This role allowed people to develop and grow their facilitation skills 'on the job' whilst being mentored and supported by other facilitators within our workforce. This allowed for the safe and comfortable growth and development of trainees within the facilitation space, as well as expanding our facilitation workforce.
Between 2016 and 2017, discovery college delivered 14 courses to 120 participants (students). Evaluation data showed significant improvements in young people's attitudes toward education and future study, alongside increased hope and optimism. These principles began influencing broader clinical practice within headspace, embedding co-production and reducing power imbalances across services.
Jump forward to today, discovery college now has a suite of online and in-person courses covering a range of topics:
Psychosis
Suicidality
Anxiety
Medication
Sensory Modulation
Spirituality
Self-Harm
Mental Health Frameworks
Substance Use + Addiction
In the last year alone, discovery college has been able to run 14 courses, a mix of online and in person with over 355 participants. As the courses are open to anyone and people can attend through a simple enrolment process on our website, there is a mix of perspectives in the space for every course. People self-identify which perspectives they are bringing upon enrolment and the data shows, the mix of perspectives in a course are:
70% Lived and/or Living Experience
40% Professional
40% Young Person (12 - 25 years old)
30% Family/Carer/Friend
People often self-identify as more than one perspective
Today, discovery college stands as a pioneering youth-focused recovery college model, continuing to grow and innovate. Its impact extends beyond education, reshaping mental health services to be more inclusive, hopeful, and person-centred.
Traditionally, our work has centred around co-produced workshops, courses and panels. These face-to-face and online spaces offer structured, interactive learning experiences that allow participants to reflect, grow, and connect. But as our community evolved—and as the pandemic reshaped how people accessed learning—we began asking: How else might we share learning in ways that are flexible, creative, and accessible?
The Spark: How the Podcast Came to Be
The answer emerged in the form of a podcast. We recognised that not everyone can, or wants to, engage in a classroom setting. Some people prefer to dip into ideas in their own time, at their own pace, and in ways that feel less formal.
But this wasn't only about trying a new medium. Too often, human distress is understood only through a clinical lens. We wanted to create a space where people could speak for themselves about what psychosis, grief, addiction, or euphoria felt like — not as cases to be analysed, but as fully human experiences.
To ensure authenticity, our podcast Extremely Human was co-designed through a series of workshops involving young people with lived and living experience, clinicians, carers and community members. Together, we explored what topics they wanted to hear about, the ideal length and tone of the episodes, and what the term "extreme states" meant to different people. This collaborative process helped ensure the podcast genuinely reflected diverse perspectives while remaining grounded in recovery college principles.
And so, Extremely Human was born: a podcast that leans into honest dialogue, diverse perspectives, and the messiness of being human.
We began creating Extremely Human by partnering with Amplify, a youth development program that generously provided access to their recording studio.
None of the team had made a podcast before, so one of our biggest challenges was developing the technical skills needed to produce a high-quality show—from recording and editing to promotion. With support from an Amplify staff member and many YouTube tutorials, we gradually built our skills and confidence. Our first guests were people who had participated in our co-design workshops and wanted to share their experiences. Collaboration was central from the beginning: we found our podcast artist through a social media call-out to our Instagram community, and the original music was created by a young person accessing the headspace Early Psychosis program, alongside their case worker and two clinicians with musical backgrounds. The podcast launched at theMHS Conference in Adelaide in 2023 and has since reached over 5000 listeners across 25 countries. Given that podcasting was new territory for us, we weren't sure if anyone would listen—so the response has been both surprising and encouraging. We continue to seek feedback and evolve the podcast in response to our audience.
Bite-Sized Learning Outside the Classroom
Extremely Human offers short, accessible episodes that listeners can engage with anywhere—on a commute, during a walk, or at home. Each episode explores a specific theme, idea, or lived experience around mental health and wellbeing.
Unlike a full discovery college course, which may take several hours, the podcast delivers learning in manageable, digestible pieces with each episode running for under 60 minutes. One listener reflected:
"It's light and easy to listen to on topics which can sometimes feel very dark. It's also always full of hope."
Another wrote:
"What a delightful space for much-needed, humanizing conversations! Looking forward to listening to this podcast unfold and hearing more voices explore extreme states, and how humans can be with each other in these states."
This format makes learning flexible and responsive, inviting people to engage on their own terms while still carrying forward the reflective, curious spirit that underpins our work.
Staying True to Recovery College Principles
Even in this new format, the principles of a recovery college remain central. Every episode is:
Learning: Episodes are created for people to have autonomy and self-direction in their learning. They can choose which episodes they would like to listen to, reflect on and learn from.
Co-produced: Episodes are built slowly and collaboratively, bringing together people with lived and professional experience for every stage of the journey.
Recovery Focused and Strengths Based: Guests speak from lived experiences, not abstract theories. The tone is exploratory rather than prescriptive and allows for hope and curiosity in understanding different mental health experiences.
Progressive and Inclusive: The episodes are created by listening to and moving with what people tell us is helpful. People are able to access and learn from them when and how they need to.
Community Focus and Social Connectedness: The hope of the conversations is to allow for the greater understanding of different perspectives around mental health. All voices are valued—whether from clinicians, young people, carers, or community members. The hope is to allow for more social connectedness and ways the community can understand and take care of each other as well as create a bridge between the community and mental health services.
Open to all: Extremely Human is designed to be accessible and open to everyone. The podcast is free and ad-free, available on all major podcast platforms worldwide. Each episode is accompanied by a written transcript to support accessibility for people who are deaf, hard of hearing or who prefer reading. Our website also has a translation plugin which allows for the transcripts to be read in any language.
In this way, Extremely Human does not sit outside discovery college—it sits alongside it, offering a different doorway into the same shared learning journey.
Creating an episode
One of our earliest episodes, "Stability in the Storm," explores what it feels like to experience psychosis. In this conversation, our guest—a young person who played a major role in the creation of Extremely Human—shares what was helpful and unhelpful during that time, and how life has unfolded since. Together, we reflect on how experiences like psychosis can transform people, and what compassionate care can look like for those going through it.
As with all episodes, we began with a pre-interview chat to outline what topics the guest felt comfortable discussing, what would be off-limits, and whether they wished to remain anonymous. We also talked openly about consent and safety—explaining that while guests could request to take down an episode at any time, it can be difficult to fully remove content once downloaded or shared online.
After recording, our editor worked closely with the guest to refine the final cut, ensuring it accurately represented their story and that they felt comfortable with how it was portrayed. Once published, the episode was promoted through social media and word of mouth within our community.
The impact of "Stability in the Storm" was greater than we anticipated. It has become one of our most listened-to episodes, resonating strongly with audiences both in Australia and overseas.
The guest later shared:
"The podcast we recorded was very healing for my family and they all commented on how great it was to listen to me express the experience, so I am very grateful that it's brought us together. My friends who I sent it to have been lovely and supportive!! You [Lucy and Rachel, podcast hosts] do such a great job guiding the convo and in hindsight I am so glad I got to do it, massive highlight of this year and my recovery."
We also heard from a young person connected to the headspace Early Psychosis service who wasn't yet ready to join groups or courses but found connection through listening to the episode. Experiences like these have reinforced the importance of storytelling and the power of hearing lived experience in an accessible, human way.
The episode "Stability in the Storm" and its accompanying transcript are available at: https://discovery.college/podcast/stability-in-the-storm/
Impact: Different Perspectives, Shared Resonance
The impact of the podcast has been felt across multiple audiences:
Learners: Young people and community members describe the podcast as relatable and hopeful. For some, it has strengthened family relationships as guests publicly share their stories.
Professionals: Clinicians use episodes as reflective resources in teams, classrooms, and training. One psychiatrist described how the podcast reinforced the importance of "presence, connection, and compassion" in suicide prevention work.
Facilitators and Guests: For those who participate, the act of telling their story can itself be profoundly meaningful and part of their recovery.
The Wider Community: The podcast reached more than 5,000 listens across 25 countries, with overwhelmingly positive feedback. The open-access format expands discovery college's ethos beyond Melbourne, inviting global participation.
We are always so genuinely excited to receive any feedback. It is so meaningful to understanding the impact of the podcast and how we can continue to evolve it to meet what people want. Some of the feedback we have received to date is:
"Highly recommend this podcast. Thought provoking, helping to break down stigma and normalise mental health across the whole spectrum." - Community Member
I thought the latest podcast with Jesse was outstanding. It was so rich and full of learning. The idea that clinicians need "steady heads" and "calmness" and skills needed are presence, connection and compassion. The focus on trust and holding the expectation (or hope) and holding the space for the ambivalence. It is very motivating to hear this and re emphasized the importance of our leadership for creating the right environment to allow our clinicians to do this. - Clinician
It's wonderful to hear the connection between spirituality and mental health discussed so openly. We are too often afraid of what we don't understand. Full healing requires physiological and spiritual attention. Great episode. - Community Member
The connection between mental health and spirituality is a really important conversation that we need to be having more often, and this episode was a super interesting dive into the relationship between the two things! - Community Member
The podcast has also been recognised by The Mental Health Services Learning Network in Australia and New Zealand (theMHS) by receiving the 2025 TheMHS Media & Journalism Award for Lived Experience Storytelling — a testament to its authenticity, reach, and impact.
Reflections from the judging panel were:
"Grounded in the principles of the mental health consumer movement, this is a wonderful example of how to create a container for meaningful and purposeful sharing of lived experience insights."
Possibilities: An Exciting Future
Extremely Human is not just a podcast; it is an evolving experiment in how recovery college principles can live in new formats. It has opened up exciting possibilities:
Using episodes as pre- or post-course resources to extend learning.
Embedding episodes in suicide awareness training and professional development.
Collaborating with other organisations to co-create themed series.
Building an archive of stories and reflections that serve as a collective resource on mental health and humanity.
Conclusion
At its core, Extremely Human is about making space for the stories, questions, and reflections that help us make sense of being human together. It reminds us that learning does not have to be confined to classrooms—it can happen in the small, everyday act of listening to each other.
For discovery college, the podcast has become both a mirror and a bridge: a mirror reflecting our values in a new format, and a bridge connecting us with audiences far beyond our usual reach.
As we continue this journey, we remain guided by the same spirit that shaped discovery college from the beginning: learning together, with openness, creativity, and hope.
The Extremely Human podcast and accompanying episode transcripts are available at: https://discovery.college/podcasts/
Other papers in the Imroc Recovery Colleges 'Sharing Our Experience' series
Described the development of the Ontario Shores Recovery College in Canada in a largely clinical mental health services and its impact in driving forward recovery-focused practice across the whole mental health system. https://www.imroc.org/publications/the-development-of-the-ontario-shores-recovery-college?rq=Ontario
Looked at innovative ways in which the Tower Hamlets Recovery College in London, England, significantly improved the extent to which it served the diverse communities in the area. https://www.imroc.org/publications/serving-diverse-communities-tower-hamlets-recovery-college?rq=Tower
Explored ways in which Recovery Colleges can better be inclusive of unpaid carers and the experience of Lincolnshire Recovery College, England, in establishing courses for family carers. https://www.imroc.org/publications/ensuring-that-recovery-colleges-are-accessible-to-family-carers-lincolnshire-recovery-college?rq=carers
Outlined the development of 'Discovery College West' for young people in Roscommon and East Galway, Ireland: a College co-created with young people, not just for them, that meets them where they are, speaks their language and values their experiences. https://www.imroc.org/publications/where-young-people-lead-discovery-college-and-a-new-era-of-empowered-mental-health-support-in-ireland