The community sector talks a lot about lived experience but what does it really mean, and how can a lived reality of disability become a form of expertise every bit as hard earned, powerful and valuable as any doctorate?

In this eye-opening episode, host Nicky sits down with someone who is themself a doctor (but would prefer to be called Shane) - Dr Shane Clifton, the Director of the Centre for Disability Research and Policy at the University of Sydney.

Shane's story is a remarkable one. At the age of 39, while working as a teacher at a theological college, he acquired a spinal cord injury that left him a quadriplegic. Navigating not just the physical challenges but a profound shift in identity, all while working through grief, was, as he describes it, a transformative experience that changed him completely. And yet, something unexpected emerged: Shane became a better teacher because of his disability.

Central to Shane's thinking is the social model of disability, which locates disability not in the individual and their impairment, but in the inaccessible environments, attitudes and structures of society around them. This fundamental shift in perspective changes everything; it can change depression into anger, it can change how you see barriers, where you look for solutions, and inspire those with lived expertise and their allies to move beyond good intentions to bring forward valid opinions to inform and where necessary to contradict, argue or challenge.

Shane takes a deep and honest look at the world of lived experience roles and co-design, and why, despite best intentions, these can so often tip into tokenism. When a person with disability sits alongside qualified professionals, they may have a seat at the table but often it is not an equal voice. Shane argues powerfully that this needs to change. The creativity, adaptability and hard-won wisdom that comes from navigating daily life with disability is genuine expertise and deserves to be treated as such.

"We shouldn't apologise for what disability has taught us," he says.

As a current board director of The Disability Trust, a former Policy Director and Research Officer for the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation of People with Disabilities, and the former president of Spinal Cord Injuries Australia, Shane has brought his lived expertise into governance roles, demonstrating what authentic representation looks like in practice.

This is a conversation that will genuinely shift the way you think about disability, inclusion, and who gets to be the expert in the room. Don't miss it.

Resources and Links:

• Shane’s Blog - Riding the current

• Shane's Article (2025): Powering my wheelchair through academia: an autoethnography

• Shane(et al)'s Article (2025): Disability lived experience and expertise