Category: Social-Community Supports

Component Evaluation: Self-Guided

Component Evaluation: MPA – Self-Guided Learning Timing: 30 minutes, flexible Mode: In-class; Online Customize the station exercise outlined below into a 4-point response sheet that reflects your learning goals for the film and the time which you have available for this exercise.  Students watch the film, either in class or outside of class-time, and complete …

Component Evaluation: Peer-Directed Learning

Component Evaluation: Peer-Directed Learning Timing: 45 minutes Mode: In-class; Online After your students have viewed the documentary, use the following questions as prompts for discussion.  Set up different areas in the classroom (or on the course learning management system) as laid out below with questions on a large sheet of paper and markers for students …

Components: Self-Guided

Components: MPA – Self-Guided Timing: 45 Minutes (flexible) Mode: In-class; Online The 36-minute Canadian documentary The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Stories from MPA, is an excellent learning tool for exploring advocacy, activism and promising mental health practice.  Early MPA members still feel passionate about the group that they founded and wanted to make a …

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 …

Component Evaluation: Deconstructing Madness

Component Evaluation: Deconstructing Madness Timing: 40 – 50 minutes Mode: In-class; Online Although it is extremely important to challenge depictions and false representations found within film and other media, we should not discount the benefits of fiction and non-fiction narratives to participate in practices of bearing witness and truth-telling needed to combat stigma and produce …

Components: Self-Guided

D Components: Self-Guided Timing: 15 Minutes Mode: In class; On-line In-class or online, students can read or listen to Lanny Beckman’s memoir, a compelling consideration of the distance between mental health practitioners and people who live with mental health diagnoses.  Ask students to use the following themes to guide their consideration of this component: Professional …

Component Evaluation: Intersectional Analysis

Component Evaluation: Intersectional Analysis Timing: 30 Minutes Download Beckman’s piece titled “What If?  …Cancer Prisons” as a prompt for your students in a creative writing or cartooning exercise. Ask your students to respond to Beckman’s satirical treatment of the criminalization of mental difference and substance use.  Encourage them to use humour (carefully!) to delve deeper …