Category: Background Reading

Designing Dementia Care

Designing Dementia Care Unit Takeaways Recognize that the inherent ageism in our society permeates policy and practice Appreciate the need to create residential care facilities that afford full and dignified lives for older adults with cognitive or physical limitations Understand that in an institutional setting, the conditions of care and the conditions of work are …

Speaking to History

Speaking to History: Mental Health Policy Unit Takeaways Understand the circumstances and ideas that informed deinstitutionalization policies and how they shaped day-to-day practice and the lives of service users Identify the ways in which restrictions and discipline characteristic of the earlier long-stay mental health hospitals have been reproduced in the bureaucratized mental health and social …

Question Man

Question Man Unit Takeaways Appreciate that patients may experience mental health services as oppressive and soul-destroying Understand the importance of practitioners working with patients to help reclaim strengths and strategies that were part of their identity before they experienced mental health difficulties Value voice, resiliency, resistance and experiential knowledge in supporting good mental health Component …

The Psychiatric Gaze

The Psychiatric Gaze Unit Takeaways Appreciate the negative impact of power imbalances and distance in the mental health system between those who provide and those who use services Understand the damage that can be done in the practitioner-patient relationship when patients are understood through their diagnoses rather than their skills and life experience Recognize the …

Ya’Ya Heit and Indigenous Mental Health Unit

Ya’Ya Heit and Indigenous Mental Health Unit Takeaways Recognize colonialism as a distal determinant of mental health and wellbeing and the relevance of the Indian Act to mental health and wellbeing of Indigenous peoples Understand the impact of historical and legal forces on current material circumstances and mental health and wellbeing of Indigenous peoples Appreciate …

The Doreen Befus Story

The Doreen Befus Story Unit Takeaways Recognize the historical role of medicine, science and the law and their institutions in violating the human rights of mental health patients Understand the danger of unchecked professional power and authority as evidenced in the theory and practices of eugenics Appreciate the possible consequences of professional practice that negates …

Go Nuts!

Go Nuts! Unit Takeaways Appreciate the diversity of perspectives within the mad community Value a radical service user perspective which celebrates mental diversity, simple pleasures, and alternative treatment modalities Component This component is a short video called Go Nuts! – an entertaining 4-minute homage to mad culture and a provocative critique of normalcy and its …

Making Madness Political

Making Madness Political Unit Takeaways Understand activism as pragmatic and strategic rather than just ideological and/or dogmatic Appreciate the personally transformative impact of community change work Explain between the role of media and popular culture inside marginalized groups and outside the mad movement as shaping broader societal attitudes Components David Reville’s dynamic scrapbook displays his …

The Toronto Scene

The Toronto Scene Unit Takeaways Understand that mad activism is a social and cultural movement which fosters positive individual and community identity Appreciate that advocacy and activism function differently to promote social change Component This component is a fifteen-minute video featuring oral history interviews shot in 2009.  Secondary student Lily Ross-Millard used the footage to …

Lesson Plans

MPA: The Inmates’ Utopia Unit Takeaways Understand the power of activism in mental health communities Appreciate the empowering attributes of democratic structure and shared accountability in grassroots mental health groups and projects Recognize that service users often know what they need and can play an active role in the provision of appropriate services Appreciate the …